Plant Library

Other Names:  Garden Burnet, syn. Poterium sanguisorba

Description:

Primarily grown in herb gardens for its tasty leaves; tiny greenish flowers with purple tinged styles that appear in mid-summer on tall spikes are interesting, but not very ornamental; young leaves have the best taste; great for herb gardens or containers

Ornamental Features

Salad Burnet's attractive serrated round leaves emerge light green in spring, turning bluish-green in color throughout the season on a plant with a mounded habit of growth. It features subtle spikes of purple flowers rising above the foliage in early summer.

Landscape Attributes

Salad Burnet is an herbaceous perennial with a mounded form. Its medium texture blends into the garden, but can always be balanced by a couple of finer or coarser plants for an effective composition.

This plant will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It is a good choice for attracting bees and butterflies to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Salad Burnet is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• General Garden Use
• Herb Gardens
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Salad Burnet will grow to be about 12 inches tall at maturity extending to 24 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 24 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 20 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain dense right to the ground, not requiring facer plants in front. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an herbaceous perennial, this plant will usually die back to the crown each winter, and will regrow from the base each spring. Be careful not to disturb the crown in late winter when it may not be readily seen!

This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This species is not originally from North America.

Salad Burnet is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It can be used either as 'filler' or as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, depending on the height and form of the other plants used in the container planting. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.