Rob's plants
home garden plants wildlife seed photos
plant sale journal topics plantlinks fun guestbook

Valeriana officinalis

 
Valeriana officinalis
common valerian; garden heliotrope
Valeriana officinalis

Common name common valerian; garden heliotrope
Family valerianaceae
Life cycle perennial (Z4-9)
Flowers white (summer)
Size 4-6'
Light sun-part shade

Spreading herb with fragrant flowers and ferny foliage. The flowers are so white that I have a hard time capturing them with my camera. Fast-growing in late spring - there's a week between the two photos above. This is reported to be a prolific self-seeder; so far, I haven't noticed this yet in our garden, but our first flowers came just a year ago - I'll be keeping an eye out for seedlings.

common valerian; garden heliotrope
Taller already in its third year (late May - the buds have not yet opened)
Valeriana officinalis
A week later, now in full bloom
common valerian; garden heliotrope
New growth emerging in striking burgundy tones, late March
Valeriana officinalis

We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston.

About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Valeriana officinalis


Visitors to this page have left the following comments


Seed-starting details for this plant

  1. Seed from '07 trade. Baggy 35F (12w) - 70F (all of the plump seeds germinated in 3 days; lots of duds)
  2. Seed from '10 garden. Baggy 35F (13w) - 70F (28%G, 4-5d). Lots of seeds had no bulk
  3. Seed from '11 garden. Baggy 35F (8w) - 70F (60%G, 3-5d)


I welcome comments about my web pages; feel free to use the form below to leave feedback about this particular page. For the benefit of other visitors to these pages, I will list any relevant comments you leave, and if appropriate, I will update my page to correct mis-information. Faced with an ever-increasing onslaught of spam, I'm forced to discard any comments including html markups. Please submit your comment as plain text. If you have a comment about the website as a whole, please leave it in my guestbook. If you have a question that needs a personal response, please e-mail me.

Your name

Your comments