Common stork’s-bill

How to recognise it

Growth habit

Annual to biennial with a flat rosette and creeping to ascending, hairy stems of 10–40 cm, often slightly sticky.

Leaf

Pinnate, 3–15 cm long, with deeply cut leaflets that make the leaf look fern-like or as fine as parsley; hairy.

Flower

Pink to lilac, sometimes white, 1–1.5 cm, with five petals, 2–12 together in a small umbel on a long stalk. The two upper petals sometimes have a dark spot at the base. The petals drop quickly. Flowers from April to September.

Fruit/Seed

A long, straight beak of 2–4 cm that splits when ripe into five segments, each with a spirally twisted tail. The tail coils in dry weather and uncoils in damp weather, drilling the seed into the ground.

Roots

A thin taproot; young plants are easy to pull up.

Confusion with

Crane’s-bills, such as dove’s-foot crane’s-bill, have round, palmately lobed leaves instead of pinnate ones. Musk stork’s-bill, mainly on the coast, has larger, less deeply cut leaflets and smells of musk.

Flowering: April–September · Pruning: September

Why grow it?

• Flowers almost all season, from April to September, with small pink flowers for bees, bumblebees and hoverflies.
• Food plant of the brown argus, a butterfly of dry, poor places.
• The beaked fruits with their corkscrew tails are a small wonder to show children.
• A true pioneer for sandy soil, gravel gardens and poor verges, where few other plants thrive.
• Stays low and is easy to keep in check: a friendly ‘weed’ between paving and in gravel.

Common stork’s-bill: where does it grow best?

• In the wild: dunes, sandy fields and field margins, poor verges, dry grassland, railway land, sandy paths and cracks in paving.
• Full sun.
• Dry, poor, free-draining soil: sand or gravel, limy or slightly acidic.
• In the garden: a gravel garden, a sandy edge, a green roof, between patio slabs or in a poor wildflower meadow on sand.

Goes well with

• Common whitlowgrass: Flowers in February–April, before the stork’s-bill gets going.
• Dove’s-foot crane’s-bill: A relative with small pink flowers and also a food plant of the brown argus.
• Biting stonecrop: Yellow cushions on the same dry sand.
• Harebell: Blue bells in summer, for the same poor soil.

Common stork’s-bill: when and how to plant it?

1. Buy seed from a native plant nursery or collect some ripe seed in your own garden in summer; never dig up plants from the wild.
2. Sow in August–September or March–April directly where it is to grow, on bare, sandy soil, 0.5 cm deep. Because of its taproot it transplants poorly.
3. First loosen the soil with a rake and remove grass and perennial weeds: it needs small bare patches.
4. Thin seedlings to 20–30 cm apart, or leave them in loose little groups.
5. Keep the soil moist until the seedlings appear; after that, watering is no longer needed.
6. No fertiliser and no compost: on poor soil it stays compact and flowers for longest.

Care

Water

Not needed: it tolerates drought extremely well.

Feeding

Do not feed: on rich soil it is crowded out by grasses and other greenery.

Letting it seed

Let the beaked fruits ripen: that way it self-seeds and comes back every year.

Keeping it open

In late summer, scratch open a few bare patches so new plants can germinate.

Spreading

If it appears where you do not want it, pull up the young rosettes; the taproot comes out easily.

Tip: Sow it directly where it is to grow, on bare, sandy soil, and then let it get on with it: with its self-drilling seeds it keeps itself going for years.

Pruning and mowing

Pruning months: September.

When: No pruning needed; in a wildflower meadow on sand, mow in September.

How:

• It stays low and dies off by itself after setting seed: no cutting needed.
• Pull up dried-out, dead plants in autumn, after they have shed their seed.
• In a wildflower meadow on sand, mow in September and remove the cuttings, so the soil stays poor.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

It self-seeds. Collect ripe segments in June–September, before they are flung away, and sow them where they are to grow in August–September or in spring.

Common stork’s-bill: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy to −20 °C.

• Plants that germinate in late summer overwinter as a flat, green rosette.
• Hardy, to about −20 °C; wet, heavy soil is the main problem in winter.
• The old plants from the past year disappear; their seeds are already in the ground by then.

Diseases and pests

• Overgrown: On rich soil it loses out to grasses. Keep the soil poor and open.
• Too many seedlings: Between paving or in a border it can self-seed freely. Weed out unwanted rosettes in spring.
• Wet soil: On wet, heavy soil it rots. Choose a dry, sandy spot.
• Aphids: Sometimes on young shoots; ladybirds and hoverfly larvae deal with them.

Through the year

• March: Sow in place. Overwintered rosettes start growing again.
• April: The first pink flowers.
• May: Full bloom. The first brown argus butterflies are on the wing.
• June: Flowers and the first beaked fruits. Collect seed.
• July: Flowers. Brown argus caterpillars feed on the leaves.
• August: Flowers. Sow on bare, sandy spots.
• September: Last flowers. Mow a meadow on sand and remove the cuttings.
• October: Clear away dead plants. New rosettes appear.
• December: The rosettes overwinter.

Did you know?

• Erodium comes from the Greek erōdios, heron, after the long, beak-shaped fruits. Cicutarium means ‘like Cicuta’, cowbane or water hemlock, after the finely cut leaves.
• The tail of each segment coils up in dry weather and uncoils when damp. This movement screws the seed into the ground like a corkscrew.
• When the fruit is ripe it bursts open and flings the segments a little way from the parent plant.