Valerian is a wild plant that is common in the Netherlands, often along ditch banks and in other swampy places. You don’t see it often in gardens and that’s a shame, says garden expert Romke van de Kaa.
Valerian has become known as a medicine, especially as a sedative, but as a garden plant it has Valeriana officinalis never made a career.
Why valerian is so little planted in gardens is a mystery to me. It is a tall, sturdy perennial with umbels of white flowers at the end of the usually unbranched flower stem. Those flowers are pink in bud and that two-tone – pink bud and white flower – gives a nice apple blossom effect.
Valerian does well in the sun but also in the shade and on moist but also on dry soil. The ideal garden plant so, you might think. And calming too.
Foreign relatives of valerian prefer to be planted in the garden. Such a relative is the spur flower, Centranthus ruber, a plant that likes to grow in the weathered mortar of old walls. The spur flower has blue-gray leaves and pink-red flowers that also show the bicoloredness that is characteristic of the valerian family: the flowers are red in bud and pink when they are open.
There is a white form, Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’, and also a dark red variety: Centranthus ruber ‘Coccineus’. The spur flower is a suitable plant for very dry places and prefers to grow on rubble than in fertilized garden soil. The spur flower could also do well in modern anti-gardens filled with crushed stone. In the context of a botanical guerrilla I’ll just scatter some seeds in all those litter boxes full of crushed mine stone.
Another exotic member of the valerian family is Valeriana phu ‘Aurea’, a plant that produces bright golden yellow leaves in spring. After May, this valerian has lost its power: the leaves become dull green and the white flower is more of a single one flag on a mud barge. But just for those few golden spring weeks, Valeriana phu ‘Aurea’ is an asset.
Patrinias come from Japan, plants that look a bit like valerian, but with bright yellow flowers. Don’t count them in the premier league of garden plants, but they bloom easily and you can cleverly combine them with other plants.
Patrinia gibbosathe most commonly planted species, is somewhat reminiscent of yellow-flowering baby’s breath. The plant blooms towards the end of summer and is beautiful in combination with ornamental grasses.
Do not plant them next to the terrace, because all varieties produce a strong wet dog smell off. Anyone who likes to visit specialist nurseries can look forward to Patrinia scabiosifoliaa sturdy, approximately 50 centimeter high, unbranched species that grows well in shade that is not too dry. Lemon yellow and, like all other Patrinias, adorned with decorative seeds after flowering.
