A single 4-6 foot  plant of purple angelica (Angelica gigas) provides a striking garden accent. Drifts of three or more can really dominate a space. The deep wine-purple color fits into a lot of color schemes, harmonizing with other reds, purples and pinks while complementing yellows and golds, and creating a pleasing dissonance with greens and blues. The plant provides late-season interest in the C.K. Patrick Perennial border.

This plant is a biennial or sometimes a short-lived perennial. The usual life cycle it follows is to sprout from seed in the early spring and spend the first summer producing foliage. It dies to the ground after the first frost or two, re-emerges the second spring and produces flowers in late summer. After flowering and scattering seed, the plant usually dies. I say usually, because it can sometimes perform counter to type and seems to occasionally survive to flower another year or two. It also re-seeds readily, so it’s hard to tell whether it’s the same plant or a new seedling. Native to Korea, Angelica gigas is hardy in zones 4-9 and thrives in rich, moist, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade.

Purple angelica is a source of nectar for all sorts of flying creatures. Honeybees (which need all the help they can get – under attack by chemical, environmental and disease stresses) frequent angelica blossoms. The botanical family that angelica belongs to, the Apiaceae, is named with the Latin name for bee: Apis. Butterflies, too, can land and sip from the rounded domes of florets without damaging their wings.

Members of the same botanical family as parsley, celery and dill, plants in the genus Angelica, have been used around the world in various medicinal traditions. Chinese medicine, the Ayurvedic medicine of India, and the European herbal practitioners have all found uses for Angelicas of different species. The roots, stems and seeds of Angelica archangelica are also used in flavoring liqueurs and confections and other culinary applications.

Posted by Ann McCulloh

I become more enthralled all the time with the relationships between flowers and the insects that pollinate them. Essentially, flowers look and smell the way they do, because they need to attract members of an entirely different biological kingdom to help them reproduce themselves! This usually benefits the insect in some fundamental way as well. I hope everyone spends a moment or two at some time in their lives thinking about these complex and miraculous relationships. The Bugged Out! exhibit at the Garden puts a special focus on the fascinating insect world.

There has been a lot of reporting in the media lately about the plight of the honeybee. First, two different kinds of mites were found to be attacking bee colonies. Beekeepers began observing weakened or ruined hives more than 10 years ago. More recently, the creepy phenomen called "Colony Collapse Disorder" has wiped out great numbers of bees around the world, causing well-founded alarm about reduced or ruined food crops. Crops affected range from tree fruits to berries, melons and strawberries. The familiar honeybee (Apis mellifera) is not native to the Americas, but neither are most of the food crops that we rely on them to pollinate.

Honeybees are general feeders - that is, they gather nectar and pollen from a wide variety of flowers, throughout a very long season. Since some of the hive members stay alive during the winter, they are especially eager to fly out in search of food whenever the air temperature rises. As a gardener and an avid consumer of honey and bee-pollinated fruits and vegetables, I know it’s important for them to find it! Early-blooming varieties of fragrant flowers like crocus, hyacinth and early-blooming witchhazel, planted in largish clumps and drifts, help winter-starved honeybees survive until spring is really in full swing.

Entomologists, agronomists and beekeepers are hard at work figuring out what’s going on with the honeybees and how to slow or prevent their decline. Others are busy studying other kinds of pollinators (solitary bees, bumblebees, flies, and wasps to mention a few.)  In the meantime, I hope the early spring flowers in the Garden help sustain at least a few neighboring hives.

Posted by Ann McCulloh