UMBELLIFERS

As a never-ever grower, learning to garden can feel like a giant undertaking. Too much to learn, too much to retain, and too much to be bothered with. But once the growing bug has a grip on you and the wins start to outweigh the misses, you will discover the total delight of curation.

Picking and choosing which plants you’d like to plough your efforts into and which specimens you want to enjoy each season is truly rewarding. Both visually and emotionally.

Looking beyond colour to also explore shape and form is where you get to experiment and discover your green-thumbed creativity. As you learn, you’ll find combinations you love, appreciating plants for their foliage and blooms right through to their seedheads.

Words and photography by Julia Atkinson-Dunn

*Masses of fennel. It’s easy to have a problem with it self seeding unless you are diligent in removing seedheads before they mature!*

One of my favourite forms to incorporate into my garden is the ‘umbellifer’ – a flowering plant that belongs to the Apiaceae (celery) family. With a membership of hundreds of genera and thousands of species, these plants are broadly characterised according to their flowers, which develop as ‘umbels’ (meaning ‘umbrella-like’). Bursting from the tip of a main stalk, small stems swoop upward, bearing tiny flowers that group together in a disc shape or sometimes slightly domed.

Perhaps the most common umbellifers in our New Zealand gardens are the bolting blooms of our carrot, celery, parsley, parsnip and coriander crops. Not to mention the towering heads of fennel, both within bounds and roaming riverbeds in the wild. Poisonous hemlock is in the mix there too, posing as the more lovable Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot), as are the sturdy giant heads of roadside angelica. Below is a list of my personal favourites for the garden and the vase.

*Fennel is best picked when the flowers get a chartreuse tone. Picking when young and green will instantly leave you with floppy stems.*

FENNEL

Fennel would be my ‘gateway’ umbellifer.
I introduced it before I had any real recognition of the umbellifer family and, as a beginner, it quickly gave me the eager growth and blooms needed to raise my gardening confidence. I grow the common perennial variety of Foeniculum vulgare, as opposed to Florence fennel, with its edible bulb. Maturing to lofty heights of nearly 2 metres with a bushy, bossy habit, I simply cut into the clump and thin it out during its most prolific growing season from spring into autumn. This allows other airy plants close by to weave through it and give the lovely wild feeling that I pursue.

With the knowledge that the plant will regenerate quickly, I harvest flowers liberally to enjoy inside. Fennel flowers are best picked when they are acid yellow/green or just forming seeds to prevent wilting in the vase. The remaining heads on the plant will develop and mature seeds that you can share with the birds, as well as harvest for your pantry. I give my plants a strong chop back as soon as they’re looking like the seeds are dropping, as I have learned from experience that they will likely get growing wherever they land!

*Astrantia major* *- also known as masterwort.*

ASTRANTIA

In great contrast to fennel, Astrantia major is a delightful, delicate perennial umbellifer with starry flowers that bring light and interest to partly shaded areas. Commonly maturing to around 30–60cm over lovely fern-like foliage, varieties offer flowering options in a spectrum of plums through to white with dashes of green. After a few years, I dig up and divide the clumps to create more plants with the excitement of enjoying further blooms from summer right through to late autumn. They have a terrific vase life and truly belong in every flower bed!
My friend Jenny told me recently that her astrantia has seeded through her garden to a problematic level! I could only wish that would happen to me!

*Daucus carota* in the back of my wild beds.

QUEEN ANNE’S LACE (TRUE AND FALSE)

Often mistaken for each other, Ammi majus (false Queen Anne’s lace or Bishop’s flower) can be identified by its pure white, umbel bloom atop long stems and ferny foliage, whereas the Daucus carota (Queen Anne’s lace, Dara or wild carrot) flower can appear white through to speckled burgundy, and always sports a telltale spot in the centre of its umbel to help with identification!

Both are cottage garden staples with the latter perhaps considered a little ‘weedier’. Reaching up to 1.2m high with carrot-like feathery leaves, both types bring a softness to the middle or back of sunny garden beds.

ORLAYA

This is a magical, lacy umbellifer with a more boldly defined head of petals than its other cousins in this family. In New Zealand the most commonly available variety is Orlaya grandiflora ‘White Lace’ – a nod to its common name of white lace flower.

Orlaya is easily grown from seed and has a penchant for self seeding as it comes to the end of its cycle. This enchanting annual will grow to around 75cm high if planted with space in a spot that receives good sunlight.

I thoroughly enjoy it in my garden and always have my fingers crossed for some more self-sown surprises. It is a romantic highlight within a mixed bed as much as it is in a mixed arrangement and has a very rewarding vase life for those that love picking.

*Don’t underestimate humble little parsley flowers as a sweet accent!*

*Parsley flower in a mixed arrangement.*

NOTABLE MENTION - PARSLEY

I know that this might be a weird one, but its inclusion here is to help you find the silver lining in your parsley bolting to flower in the heat of summer. Both my flat-leaf and curly varieties have rewarded me with terrific little umbels that look sweet in the garden as well as performing incredibly well in a vase! Perhaps don’t be so quick to cut blooming heads back this season, or at the very least, add them to mixed arrangements for quirky interest.

FLOWER FARMING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

COSMOS