How to grow yarrows

Yarrow is a low, ferny-leaved perennial in the daisy family, grown less for eating than for its long season of flat-topped flower clusters that draw bees, butterflies, and other pollinators from early summer into fall. It tolerates the kind of lean, dry, unimproved soil that stalls most garden perennials, which is why gardeners lean on it in a hot, exposed border, a pollinator strip, or a spot near a vegetable bed meant to draw in beneficial insects rather than compete for the same rich soil the vegetables need. Cut stems hold well in a vase, and the foliage stays low and aromatic between bloom flushes.

The hardest part of growing yarrow well is containing it. North Carolina State University Extension notes the species spreads aggressively by both rhizomes and self-sown seed, calling it too weedy for a tidy flower-bed border. A second-year gardener who tucks a single yarrow plant into a mixed perennial bed, expecting the well-mannered clump habit of a coneflower or salvia, skips deadheading and division; within two seasons the rhizome mat has pushed under neighboring plants, and the only fix is digging out the bed to separate root systems that are by then thoroughly tangled together.