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. Seeds may be eaten by finches and the foliage provides shelter.

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 or in moisture-retentive soil ideally, where it has room to spread up to a metre by rhizomes. Flowers in succession after ragged robin and lady’s smock.

Folklore: 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