I grow the old, ordinary common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) in 3 or 4 locations in two of our fenced garden plots. I mostly planted it for use as a dynamic accumulator although I also grew it because I thought the bees and other pollinators would enjoy its flowers. (They do.) I also grew it quite a few years back from a purchased plant I found in a feed store. I don't remember if drought killed that one (or flooding might have).

Mine that I grew from seed was fairly productive the first year (2013) and massively productive last year. I do mulch the ground fairly well and haven't had any comfrey volunteers pop up yet, but I did mostly plant it along the outer edges of the garden in case it lived it to its reputation for invasiveness. I also choose a location where I'd never want to rototill. I didn't want to take a chance on chopping up the roots when tilling and having 400,000 new plants sprout. My comfrey plants this year were a good 2-3' across and at least knee-high, and we were in drought almost the entire calendar year. I don't water the plants much. The non-edible plants I grow need to be able to tolerate very hot and dry spells on whatever small amount of water they get as I use irrigation water sparingly on compost crops, reserving it for the more important veggie, fruit, and herb crops. I figured that if the comfrey plants couldn't handle our hot and dry July and August weather with little to no irrigation, then I'd let them die and I'd replace them with something more heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant. We spend too much of our summers in very hot and dry weather so I don't like to grow wimpy plants that need constant watering. It turns out that drought doesn't seem to scare them and they made it through long spells with no water just fine.

Maybe two years isn't a long-enough time for me to comment on comfrey's reputation for invasiveness, but it isn't at all invasive for me so far and it is a strong, sturdy and beautiful plant that does not need to be pampered. It flowers here from late winter to late autumn and stays mostly green in the winter. I adore its flowers and so do all the little flying creatures. Every now and then a very heavy frost or very cold temperatures (roughly in the low- to mid-teens) cause a little frost or freeze damage, but new green growth reappears beneath the damaged foliage very shortly thereafter.

I do believe it is as useful as the permaculture people say it is and I am pleased it is doing as well here as it is. I lop off the top of the plant with lopping shears periodically and toss it on the compost pile. It regrows very quickly. I don't cut all the plants back at once because I don't want for the bees to suddenly lose the flowers they visit daily. Sometimes, if I have spare time on my hands, I use my Fiskars garden scissors to just selectively cut back outer leaves without damaging the flower stalks and toss the leaves on the compost pile. I also sometimes use some of the leaves to make compost tea for the plants.

In the first year that I grew it, I had ordered the seeds the last week of February, and I think I put the seedlings (raised in the greenhouse) in the ground in early to mid-May. The seeds took maybe 7-10 days to germinate. I understand they are slow to germinate in cooler soil, but they were pretty quick in the greenhouse. The grew quickly once they were in the ground.

I ordered my seeds in 2013 from Hazzard's and it was their small packet (not that any of their quantities are small) so it had 100 seeds.

I considered buying one of the root-grown comfrey varieties like Boking, but then decided to go the seed route first since it is a more economical way to grow a lot of plants. I'm not sorry that I did. Had I had issues with the seeds (like poor germination or slow germination) or if the plants had proved invasive, I might have been sorry that I grew the Comfrey from seed, but I am not. Richter's and several other places (Horizon Herbs is another that comes to mind) sell comfrey seed but I don't know what quantity of seeds they have in their packets.

I was cautious with it the first year, not wanting to plant the whole packet of seeds until I knew how well the plants grew here. Now that I know they grow well but don't reseed abundantly, I'm going to sow the rest of the seed this spring.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

I've had a clump in NW Arkansas at my parents house for years and years. It grows well as Dawn said, but I've never seen any seedlings or mature seeds for that matter.

Thanks, Dawn! All my seed sources have only 10 seeds to a pack. A couple of plants is probably all I have room for...depending on which side of the yard I put it on. I always feel like my drainage ditch could use some USEFUL invasives to compete with the bind weed and grass weeds. So if I could get seeds from it that would be ok, too.

dBarron, there are varieties that reproduce from root and crown cuttings and don't produce seeds. It wasn't clear to me if those types flowered.

I want to plant some milkweed, I wonder if it would do well with comfrey. Thinking of a wilder bed in the back corner of the yard, with some black eyed susans, too. A little weedy patch would drive DH crazy...but there were some other tall herbs I was looking at.

I keep trying to pare down my seed list, but I cross one off and then decide I need to add 2 new things. I check a different company and OH I want that...who is Hazzards? I will google...

As far as I know, all the different strains of Bocking (there's over 20) do flower. It is just that their seeds are sterile.

I linked Hazzard's below. They are a great source because they carry a huge variety of seeds, and in some large quantities.

In semi-weedy areas where I want to grow plants that my husband is not allowed to mow, I have had luck with four o'clocks in anything from morning sun only to dappled shade to almost full sun (meaning some shade either in mid-day or late afternoon). I don't water them. The four o'clocks sometimes will wilt in August if they are in full sunlight from sunrise to sunset and little rain is falling. In full sun (like, in the bar ditch, for example) I drive him mad by sowing a wildflower seed blend from Wildseed Farms (at various times I've used the Tex/Ok mix, the Pack of Poppies blend, or the Firecracker Mix) in late winter or early spring. He mostly just mows around them since so many of them bloom at different times. I'd rather look at a bar ditch full of flowers than short, mowed grass. To be fair, he can mow to his heart's content after they've had time to set seeds for the next year's blooms. It took him a few years to accept that you cannot mow the pastures and meadows weekly and still have wildflowers in bloom. Sometimes we break our own rule and mow down wildflowers before they set seed if we are having a major issue with venomous snakes in the tall grass or if fire danger is incredibly high and the dry grasses/forbs elevate the risk on our own property.

Milkweed grows well in my improved clay soils or in sandy soils (the same places I plant comfrey) but not in heavy, unimproved clay. I've grown several kinds, generally from seed from Wildseed Farms. For me, the milkweeds are short-lived, surviving 3-5 years before one thing or another gets them, although we have the native green milkweed in the pastures every year. Black-eyed susans are easy to grow, and I like clasping coneflower and Mexican hat. They grow pretty much wherever I scatter handfuls of seed on the ground. Because I have so much trouble with deer eating lovely cultivated flowers that I buy and plant on purpose, I instead plant lots of wildflowers. The deer don't seem to bother those as much, perhaps because the fields around us are full of wildflowers already so the ones I plant aren't any more appealing to them than all the ones in the fields.

Amy, If you go to the Hazzard's Greenhouse website, don't blame me if you want to order 8,000 more seed packets. I'll take the blame for 4,000 of them though.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Hazzard's Greenhouse

I had comfrey in the garden for about 4 or 5 years. It was not at all invasive. Last year, I think I lost it. I'm not sure why. It might be two years of grasshopper onslaught.

George
Tahlequah, OK

I have a pack of four oclock seeds and yeah, considering throwing some over the fence. DH will mow around things, but the city comes through 2 or three times a year (this is maintenance, right?) and levels everything. Don't get me started.

George, I hope it comes back for you. Did you grow it from seed?

No, I swapped with someone in NJ to get a root cutting.

Looks like dividing the established plant is the fast way to get comfrey. I have some established and will gladly share.

Sand, if my plant doesn't reappear this spring, I'll take a cutting from you!

George

Sand, if my plant doesn't reappear this spring, I'll take a cutting from you!

George