How to Grow and Care for Queen Anne's Lace (2024)

FAQs

How to Grow and Care for Queen Anne's Lace? ›

Ensure seeds get ample sunlight and keep the soil moist, but not waterlogged. Thin seedlings to avoid crowding and promote healthy growth. Regular weeding around young plants is crucial to minimize competition for nutrients. Queen anne's lace can attract beneficial insects, promoting a healthy garden ecosystem.

Choose a sunny location with well-drained, moist soil, free of weeds.

To grow Queen Anne's lace as a biennial, sow seeds where you want the plants to grow in early autumn, while the soil is still warm. To grow Queen Anne's lace as an annual, sow seeds where you want the plants to grow in mid spring.

Scatter seeds over moist soil and water them regularly until new plants are established. 2. Plant Queen Anne's lace in a sunny spot. This plant thrives in full sunlight but can also tolerate partial shade.

Wildflower-like in nature, this lovely plant is easy to grow and proliferates rapidly, spreading its plentiful seeds freely through the breeze. Queen Anne's Lace flowers also draw beneficial pollinators to the garden like bees and butterflies, making it a friendly companion plant in the backyard garden.

Queen Anne's lace is related to dill and cilantro and is often referred to as wild carrot. Like the garden carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus), it is a biennial plant—completing its life cycle in two years.

Queen Anne's Lace often grows in large wide communities of plants. She often has companion flowers nearby: Madia, Chicory and Wild Sweet Pear are three, also thistle. Queen Anne's Lace grows throughout the United States. She does well in muggy wet summers in New England, and also in the dry summers of California.

Queen Anne's Lace is of somewhat more importance to selected insects. Its nectar and pollen attracts small bees, wasps, flies, and beetles. A number of insects feed on the foliage and roots.

Queen Anne's lace also often invades open waste ground, competing for resources with native grasses and forbs. Additionally, this plant can be a threat to recovering grasslands and prairies due to its fast maturity and ability to grow larger than many native species.

CAUTION: May cause phytophotodermatitis where sap touches the skin and is exposed to sunlight; wear long sleeves if handling. Also can easily be confused with the native, yet deadly, poison hemlock. Queen Anne's lace should be reported.

What eats Queen Anne's lace? ›

Many people consider Queen Anne's lace an invasive weed (it is listed as a noxious weed in at least 35 states), but it is used by some native animals for food. It is a host plant for eastern black swallowtail caterpillars and many butterflies and adult bees and beneficial insects utilize the flower nectar.

It's best to gather your Queen Anne's Lace flowers in the early morning, just after the dew has dried on the plants. In addition, you need to place it in water quickly to avoid wilting. When I saw all these lovely wildflowers, I quickly returned with a basket to gather my finds. I also wrapped stems in a damp cloth.

It's even been said that Queen Anne's lace was an herb used on soldier's wounds during the American Civil War (Richey, 2010). Digestive Takeaway: Queen Anne's lace is an aromatic plant. Its volatile oils soothe smooth muscle cramping, help expel gas, and have antiseptic properties.

Queen Anne's Lace Symbolism

Because the flower is sometimes referred to as “bishop's flower,” it symbolizes safety, sanctuary, and refuge. Although another interpretation is due to the flower's resemblance to a bird's nest when it goes to seed—it then becomes the perfect symbol of the sanctuary of a happy home.

Other dangerous imposters of Queen Anne's Lace are Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum), and Fool's Parsley (Aethusa cynapium).

Queen Anne's lace is an herbaceous plant that can grow 3-4 feet tall. In its first year, it has only low-lying leaves coming from the base of the plant (basal rosette). The second year the plant will grow a tall stalk, then flower, set seed, and die.

Habitat: Queen Anne's Lace grows in gravelly or sandy soils in full sun but can also grow in harder clay soils. It does best with some regular precipitation or irrigation. Growth and seed production both decrease with increased shading.

Queen Anne's lace spreads aggressively by reseeding itself. It adapts easily to poor soil conditions and tends to grow where many things won't. To cut back on the spread, it's a good idea to snip off the flower heads before they go to seed. The plants can also be dug out by their taproots before they go to seed.