Smooth hawk’s-beard

How to recognise it

Growth habit

Annual to biennial, 20–90 cm, much shorter in mown grass, with a rosette of leaves and an upright stem that branches a lot near the top. A broken stem oozes white milky sap.

Leaf

Rosette leaves lance-shaped, toothed to deeply cut, almost hairless and slightly shiny. Stem leaves narrow, with two arrow-shaped lobes clasping the stem.

Flower

Heads of 1–1.5 cm made up only of yellow ray florets; the outer ones are often reddish underneath. The ring of bracts has an inner row of long bracts and an outer row of short, spreading ones. Flowers from June to October.

Fruit/Seed

Small, brown seeds, finely ribbed lengthwise and without a beak, topped with a soft, pure white parachute of hairs that is carried by the wind.

Roots

A short taproot with many fine side roots; the plant is easy to pull up.

Confusion with

Common cat’s-ear has larger heads on leafless stems with small scales, and rough, hairy rosette leaves. Beaked hawk’s-beard flowers earlier, mainly in May–June, and has larger heads and seeds with a long beak. Dandelion has a single large head on a hollow, leafless stalk.

Flowering: June–October · Pruning: September–October

Why grow it?

• Flowers for a long time, from June into October, even when many other flowers are over.
• The yellow heads offer nectar and pollen to honeybees, solitary bees, hoverflies and small butterflies.
• Solitary bees that specialise in yellow daisy-family flowers, such as the shaggy bees, also collect pollen from it.
• The fluffy seed is food for goldfinches and other seed-eaters.
• Tolerates mowing: in a flowering lawn it keeps blooming on short stems.
• Appears by itself on poor, open ground: a free pioneer for a new wildflower meadow or gravel garden.

Smooth hawk’s-beard: where does it grow best?

• In the wild: verges, dykes, dry to moderately moist grassland, lawns, waste ground, field margins, railway banks and cracks in paving.
• Sun is ideal; it tolerates light shade, but then flowers less.
• Almost any soil, ideally poor and free-draining: sand, loam or limy soil.
• In the garden: a flowering lawn, a poor wildflower meadow, a gravel garden or a rough corner.

Goes well with

• Common cat’s-ear: Another yellow daisy-family flower for a flowering lawn, with larger heads.
• Oxeye daisy: White flowers for the same poor wildflower meadow.
• Common bird’s-foot trefoil: Yellow pea flowers and food plant of the common blue butterfly.
• Yarrow: Also tolerates mowing and flowers just as long, into autumn.

Smooth hawk’s-beard: when and how to plant it?

1. Usually it turns up by itself if you mow a patch of grass less often or leave a patch of bare soil.
2. If you want to sow it, buy seed from a native plant nursery, on its own or in a mix of native verge flowers. Never dig up plants from the wild.
3. Sow in September–October or March–April on bare, unfertilised soil. Scatter the fine seed thinly and press it down; cover it only very lightly or not at all.
4. When sowing into existing grass, first mow it very short and rake open a few bare patches.
5. Keep the soil slightly moist until the seedlings appear; after that, no watering is needed.
6. In a lawn: leave a strip or a few patches unmown for a few weeks in summer, so it can flower and set seed.

Care

Water

Not needed: it copes well with drought.

Feeding

Do not feed. Fertiliser makes the grass stronger, which then crowds it out. It flowers best on poor soil.

Mowing

In a wildflower meadow, mow in September or October and remove the cuttings. In a lawn, mow every three to four weeks instead of every week: it will then keep flowering.

Letting it seed

Being annual or biennial, it only stays if it can set seed. So always let some of the plants finish flowering.

Spreading

If it gets too much in a border or vegetable plot, pull up the young rosettes before they flower; the short taproot comes out easily.

Tip: Mow your lawn every three to four weeks instead of every week: smooth hawk’s-beard and other lawn flowers will bloom in between, and you get a flowering lawn without buying a single seed.

Pruning and mowing

Pruning months: September–October.

When: Mowing in September–October, once most of the seed has dropped.

How:

• Mow a wildflower meadow once or twice a year and remove the cuttings, so the soil stays poor.
• Leave an unmown strip each time as winter shelter for insects.
• In a border you can cut off spent stems, but leave a few for the seed and for the birds.
• In a lawn: raise the mower blades a little, and it will flower between mowings too.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

It self-seeds with its fluffy seed. To get it elsewhere, collect ripe seed heads in August–October and scatter them straight away on bare, poor soil.

Smooth hawk’s-beard: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy to −25 °C.

• Plants that germinated in late summer overwinter as a flat, green rosette among the grass.
• Fully hardy; the old plants die after setting seed.
• Leave dead stems standing in a rough corner: they shelter small insects and offer seed to birds.

Diseases and pests

• Aphids: Sometimes on the stems and buds. Ladybirds and hoverfly larvae usually clear them up quickly.
• Too many seedlings: In a vegetable plot or border it can self-seed freely. Weed out young rosettes in time, or cut off the flower stems before the seed is ripe.
• Crowded out by grass: On rich soil it loses out to tall grass. Mowing with removal of the cuttings and no fertiliser keep it in the meadow.
• Powdery mildew: A white powder on the leaves in dry late summers. Harmless for a plant that dies off anyway: no need to do anything.

Through the year

• March: Sow on bare soil. Overwintered rosettes start growing again.
• April: Weed out unwanted rosettes in the border.
• May: The flower stems shoot up.
• June: First flowers: bees and hoverflies on the heads.
• July: Full bloom. Mow the lawn every three to four weeks.
• August: Flowers and the first seed heads. Goldfinches on the seed heads.
• September: Mow the meadow and remove the cuttings. Sow.
• October: Last flowers and last mowing. Sow on bare soil.
• November: New rosettes among the grass.

Did you know?

• The species name capillaris means ‘hair-like’, a reference to the fine, soft parachute of hairs on the seeds.
• The Dutch name streepzaad, ‘striped seed’, refers to the seeds, which are finely ribbed lengthwise.
• In a closely mown lawn it adapts: it then flowers on stems of only a few centimetres, below the mower blades.