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White Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

from $8.99

Botanical name: Achillea millefolium • Bloom season: Summer to fall • Bloom color: White • Host plant: Painted lady

Flat white flower heads held over ferny, aromatic foliage from early summer until frost. Its landing-pad shape puts the nectar within reach of short-tongued native bees, hoverflies, and tiny wasps that most garden flowers shut out. It will grow in ground where almost nothing else will, and it is one of the plants most likely to still be flowering when you walk the garden in September.

Botanical name: Achillea millefolium • Bloom season: Summer to fall • Bloom color: White • Host plant: Painted lady

Flat white flower heads held over ferny, aromatic foliage from early summer until frost. Its landing-pad shape puts the nectar within reach of short-tongued native bees, hoverflies, and tiny wasps that most garden flowers shut out. It will grow in ground where almost nothing else will, and it is one of the plants most likely to still be flowering when you walk the garden in September.

Size:

Plant Characteristics

Botanical Name: Achillea millefolium

Common Name: White Yarrow

Native: Native

Sun: Full Sun

Water: Low

Bloom Time: Summer to fall

Bloom Color: White

Pollinators: Bees; Butterflies

Deer Resistant: Yes

Mature Size: W Not recorded x H 12"-24"

Soil: Well-drained; thrives in lean, rocky soil

Plant Type: Herbaceous perennial

USDA Zones: 3 to 9

Spread Habit: Spreads by rhizome; self-sows

Available As: Live plant

Native Region: Great Basin; Sierra Nevada; Cascade Range; Southern Rocky Mountains; Colorado Plateau; Pacific Northwest; Western Great Plains (widespread)

Host Plant (Great Basin): painted lady

Growing Notes

Full sun and lean ground. Rich or heavily amended soil makes it flop and run harder, so this is a plant that does better on neglect than on care. Space about 18 inches apart. In Northern Nevada it needs water only through its first summer, and it handles alkaline soil and wind better than most of the catalog.

•   Water: Low

•   Sun: Full Sun

•   Soil: Well-drained; thrives in lean, rocky soil

•   Mature size: W Not recorded x H 12"-24"

Maintenance

Yarrow is the exception to the leave-a-third-standing rule. If you do not want it spreading, cut it all the way back and stay ahead of the seed. Shearing spent heads through the season keeps it blooming and stops most of the self-sowing. It travels by rhizome as well as seed, so pull the shoots that come up outside the patch each spring; cutting the tops alone will not stop it. Divide every three or four years when the center thins.