I picked up a cute little plant from one my favorite nurseries
Pistils Nursery in North Portland, I thought it was an artichoke. I was overjoyed because I have had artichokes for years in my garden when I was growing up. My partner and I also had an artichoke at our last garden at a friend's place but it didn't fare very well with the dogs and poorly tended garden.
So I happily walked away from the nursery with my little plant in tow and I looked at the tag and it read Cardoon, which I assumed was a variety of artichoke.... but no. So apparently this is a pretty common plant in the garden and also as an ornamental. Before this year I really hadn't heard of it at all BUT now it is all over the place! I have been reading all sorts of gardening articles and it keeps popping up as a cool flower and interesting plant (which I agree it is but it is not an artichoke!).
The Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), also called the artichoke thistle, is a member of the thistle family related to the Globe artichoke. A relative of the artichoke, the growing characteristics and requirements are similar. While the flower buds can be eaten much as the artichoke, more often the the thick, fleshy leaf bases, hearts and roots are eaten after being blanched by being wrapped or buried in earth.
At least they are related and I wasn't way off in my guessing what kind of plant it was but as you can see from the tag above, it is clearly marked and labeled as a Cardoon.
Cardoon requires a long (c. 5 month), cool growing season, but is frost-sensitive. It also typically requires substantial growing space per plant, and hence is not much grown save where it is regional favorite. The cardoon is highly invasive, and has become an important weed of the pampas in Argentina, and also in California because its adaptation to the dry climate; it is also considered a weed in Australia. The cardoons were first cultivated as a vegetable by the French and said to have been brought to America in the 1790s by the Quakers.
I am not sure how this plant is going to do here in the Pacific Northwest. Since we get so much rain and lower temperatures. And because I have it in a pot it might just continue to remain smaller than it should be and I might be able to shelter it enough from the weather so it might make it to next year. Or I guess I can just eat it.
It's a good thing I like plants...
Ms. Derr
References:
thefullwiki.org
Victory Seeds
