Queen Anne's Lace is Daucus Carota

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Our garden was over run with Queen Anne's Lace, Daucus Carota, this spring and was just summarily removed.

In the past we've intentionally grown Black Knight Ammi and this year the huge mess of Daucus Carota included some of that variety but mostly was the white 8-foot tall stuff you see growing in ditches and open fields.

When the flower begins to go to seed, the heads curl up, forming a
bird's nest shape so that's where that nickname came from.

As its name implies the root is the shape of the carrot we eat though it is inedible.

No one is precisely sure which Queen Anne the other name comes from or exactly how she came to be associated with the plant.

Queen Anne's Lace flowers make beautiful cut flowers and a local flower vendor cut ours for a couple of weeks for her bouquets before we took it out. If you enjoy crafts, you can put the stems in food coloring water and make the flowers into a variety of bouquet colors.

It is a beautiful weed but can take over a flower bed in a New York minute if you aren't vigilent. We weren't and it was quite a task to get it backed off.




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