Goat’s-beard

How to recognise it

Habit

Biennial, sometimes short-lived perennial, of 30–70 cm, with one or a few sparsely branched stems. In its first year it forms only a grass-like leaf rosette.

Leaf

Long and narrow, grass-like, bluish green, with parallel veins; the broad base clasps the stem. The tip is often curled or twisted.

Flower

Yellow heads 2.5–4 cm across, made up only of ray florets, borne singly at the top of a long stalk, from May to July. Around the head there are usually eight narrow green bracts. The heads open early in the morning and close around midday.

Fruit/Seed

A large, round seed clock, much bigger than a dandelion’s. Each seed has a long beak and a pappus of finely branched, interwoven hairs, like a little parachute.

Roots

A taproot with white milky sap, which is why it does not transplant well.

Look-alikes

Dandelion has toothed leaves in a rosette and a hollow, leafless stem; goat’s-beard has grass-like leaves along the stem. Salsify, the related vegetable, has purple flowers. Without flowers the rosette looks like a tuft of grass, but the white milky sap gives it away.

Flowering: May–July · Pruning: July and September

Why grow it?

• In May and June the yellow heads offer nectar and pollen to bees, bumblebees and hoverflies in the morning.
• The large seed clocks are eye-catching in a hay meadow and great fun for children to blow away.
• A typical plant of flowery verges and hay meadows managed by mowing and removing the cuttings.
• The root and young stems were once eaten as a vegetable, like those of its relative, salsify.
• It tells the time: open in the morning, closed around midday.

Goat’s-beard: where does it grow best?

• In the wild: hay meadows, road verges, dykes, railway banks, grassland and grassy margins.
• Moderately fertile to poor soil: loam, clay or sand, often chalky, normal to fairly dry.
• Full sun; in shade the flowers stay closed and the plant flops over.
• In the garden: in a wildflower meadow or a strip of long grass that is mown, in a sunny border with wild plants or on a bank.

Goes well with

• Oxeye daisy: White flowers in the same flowery hay meadow.
• Brown knapweed: Purple flowers in summer, once goat’s-beard has finished, loved by butterflies.
• Field scabious: Lilac flowers for bees and butterflies on the same sunny ground.
• Meadow vetchling: Yellow pea flowers that scramble through the grass.
• Yellow rattle: Weakens the grasses, giving the flowers more room.

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

1. Buy seed or plants of native origin from a nursery for wild plants. Never dig up plants from the wild.
2. Preferably sow where it is to grow, in April–May or August–September, on open, loosened soil. The large seeds germinate readily; cover them with about 1 cm of soil.
3. If you sow in pots, plant out while the plants are still small: the taproot does not like being moved.
4. Plant or thin seedlings to 20–30 cm apart.
5. In existing grass: first open up small bare patches, otherwise the seedlings cannot get through.
6. Water after sowing or planting until the young plants are growing well; after that it is no longer needed.

Care

Watering

Not needed, except after sowing or planting.

Feeding

Do not feed: on rich soil it is overgrown by tall grasses.

Mowing

Only mow a wildflower meadow in July, when the seed clocks have blown away, and again in September if you like. Remove the cuttings.

Self-seeding

As a biennial it dies after setting seed, so let it sow itself every year to keep it.

Bare patches

Seedlings need open ground. After mowing, scratch open the turf here and there.

Tip: If you want to see the flowers, go and look in the morning: after midday they are closed and you walk straight past them. The seed clocks look their best on a dry, sunny morning in June.

Pruning and mowing

Pruning months: July and September.

When: Mow in July, when the seeds have blown away, and again in September if you like.

How:

• Wait to mow until most of the seed clocks are empty.
• Cut at 5–8 cm and leave the cuttings for a few days before removing them, so the last seeds can drop out.
• In a border: only cut faded stems after the seed has ripened; leave the leaf rosettes of young plants.
• Leave a strip unmown as shelter for insects.

Caution: If you mow in June, before the seed ripens, it disappears within a few years: it is short-lived and depends on its seed.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

Sow where it is to grow in spring or late summer; the rosette usually flowers the following year.

Saving seed

On a dry day, pick a seed clock that has just opened, let it dry further in a paper bag and sow straight away, or store the seed cool and dry.

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

Hardy to −30 °C.

• Plants that have flowered die after setting seed.
• Young plants overwinter as a grass-like leaf rosette and flower the following spring.
• Fully hardy.
• In a rough margin a few dry stems can be left standing as shelter for insects.

Diseases and pests

• Disappearing: It disappears if you mow too early or the turf becomes too dense. Mow after the seed has ripened and make small bare patches.
• Crowding out: On rich soil tall grasses take over. Reduce fertility by mowing and removing the cuttings.
• Slugs: They eat young seedlings. Sow generously, in a sunny, open spot.
• Rust: Sometimes small orange or brown pustules on the leaves. Harmless; leave it be.
• Closed flowers: In shade or in the afternoon the flowers are closed and the plant seems not to flower. Look in the morning.

Through the year

• March: The rosettes start growing again.
• April: Sow where it is to grow. The flower stems shoot up.
• May: Flowering begins: in the morning the yellow heads open.
• June: Full flower and the first seed clocks. Collect seed.
• July: Last flowers; the clocks blow away. Mow and remove the cuttings.
• August: Sow where it is to grow. Young rosettes appear.
• September: Second mowing. You can still sow.
• October: The new rosettes grow.
• December: The rosettes overwinter.

Did you know?

• The name Tragopogon comes from the Greek tragos (goat) and pogon (beard) and refers to the fluffy pappus; hence the English name goat’s-beard and the old French name barbe-de-bouc.
• In England it is also called Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon, because the flowers close around midday. The Dutch name morgenster, ‘morning star’, says the same thing: it flowers in the morning.
• The pappus hairs of each seed are finely branched and interwoven, together forming a kind of parachute that lets the seed float a long way.