Botanical name: Filipendula ulmaria   
Folk names: Queen-of-the-meadows, sweet hay

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Pollen for many beautifully-named moths attracted by its sweet scent. I find it to be a magnet for bumblebees, including the tree bumblebee which was spotted in my garden for the first time within days of the flowers opening.

Flowers: June to July

Decorative merit: Sweetly almond-scented creamy white flowers in cloud-like clusters on tall, upright stems up to 120cm high. Fragrant leaves are dark, shiny and fern-like.

Where: Sun or shade. Pond margins and in moisture-retentive soil ideally. Flowers in succession after ragged robin and lady’s smock.

Folkore: Its almond-like scent, loved by Queen Elizabeth I, was believed to bestow the ability to talk with fairies and it was a sacred herb of the Druids. Used as a strewing herb, for pot-pourri and to flavour mead, meadowsweet is also believed to have many helpful medicinal uses (consult a qualified herbalist such as Honeysuckle Herbal).

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank