Queen Anne’s Lace’s delicate, elegant blooms add a touch of class to your garden beds. Named for its white, lace-like flowerhead, Queen Anne’s Lace is often used to decorate cottage and potager gardens. Queen Anne’s Lace can grow up to 2 feet tall and fills in garden gaps with its fern-like leaves, long stems, and white flowers with a darker floret in the center. This beautiful, wildflower-like plant is easy to grow and maintain. It also spreads quickly and seeds easily.
Queen Anne’s Lace is often used to attract pollinators and as a companion plant. Due to its string herbal properties, it can also be grown as an edible plant. This guide can help you learn how to grow Queen Anne’s Lace and enjoy the beauty and health benefits of this elegant bloomer in your garden.
Queen Anne’s Lace pH and Ideal Soil
Queen Anne’s Lace thrives in nutrient-deficient, dry, and loamy soil, which is either neutral or slightly alkaline.
How to Plant Queen Anne’s Lace
Plant seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your last frost date in the region. Queen Anne’s Lace also thrives when it is directly sown in the garden. Queen Anne’s Lace should be planted in an area that allows the plant to spread quickly. You can stop Queen Anne’s Lace from growing in your garden by deadheading the flowers and disposing of their heads. This flower also does not need to be planted again once it is in the ground.
Invasiveness
Queen Anne’s Lace in certain locations has caused problems and has overtaken native plants. Please check if this flower is considered invasive in your area before planting. It is crucial to research and understand the risks before you attempt to grow any plants that could easily spread beyond your garden.
Queen Anne’s Lace Variety
Queen Anne’s Lace “Daucus carota’ is an ornamental or wild carrot and is often considered invasive. False Queen Anne’s Lace or ‘Daucus Dara‘ is a biennial plant that can be grown as a hardy annual. It flowers in shades of dark purple, pink, or white. The look-alike’ Ammi majus’ is better behaved and sold by most seed companies as a less invasive alternative.
Companion plants for Queen Anne’s Lace
Queen Anne’s Lace is an excellent companion plant. It’s beautiful, delicious, and easy to grow. To increase soil health and reduce the risk of pests, companion planting can create a perfect growing environment for your garden. Planting flowers, herbs, and vegetables together is called “interplanting” and is often used to attract pollinators.
Queen Anne’s Lace is known for attracting ladybugs, which are great additions to your garden. They will eat any soft-bodied insects like mites and aphids that often plague gardeners. Queen Anne’s Lace can also be mixed in with native and wildflowers to fill in gaps in your landscape. However, this flower can spread rapidly through reseeding, so be aware of that when you plant it. It has also been proven that Queen Anne’s Lace can boost edible gardens.
Queen Anne’s Lace Temperature and Light Requirements
Queen Anne’s Lace does best in full sun or partial shade and can be found in areas with moderate humidity and low temperatures. They flower from mid-spring to early fall and thrive in planting zones 3-9.
How to Water Queen Anne’s Lace
Queen Anne’s Lace is happy in dry conditions, so you don’t need to water them as often as other plants, especially if they have well-established roots.
Queen Anne’s Lace Plant Mature Time
The biennial plant grows its roots and leaves within its first year. You will need to wait until the second year to see shoots develop and produce stunning white flowerheads.
Queen Anne’s Lace & Pollinators
Increased pollination can result in healthier plants and higher yields by supporting more pollinators around your garden. Bees, wasps, butterflies, and beetles love Queen Anne’s Lace. Queen Anne’s Lace flowers are ideal for pollinators because they place the nectar close to the base of the plants, where it is easy to find.
Eating and Cooking With Queen Anne’s Lace
Queen Anne’s Lace will give you delicate beauty and nourishment as it can be eaten in its entirety. The taproot, also known as Wild Carrot or Daucus Carota, is delicious when it’s cooked. You can dry the roots, roast them to make a fine powder, and grind them into a coffee. The roots are the most tender during their first year of life and become more fibrous and woody as they age. You can use the flower heads to make teas, aromatic oils, and vinegar bottles. You can also batter up the flower heads and fry them! Queen Anne’s Lace leaves have a rich, carroty taste and can be easily incorporated into soups and stews. Some people can be allergic to the leaves, so take care when handling them.
It is important to remember that Queen Anne’s Lace is very similar to other poisonous plants, such as poison hemlock. However, the two can easily be distinguished by their smell. Queen Anne’s Lace smells sweet and like carrots, while similar poisonous plants do not smell good. When in doubt, don’t eat wild plants if you aren’t confident it is Queen Anne’s Lace or another edible plant.
