Potted Cynara cardunculus - Cardoon

The Cardoon, in Latin Cynara cardunculus, is a regular in old vegetable gardens where it is grown for its fleshy, edible and tasty leaves. It is also a remarkable ornamental plant, not often considered to add volume and a touch of prestige to a large bed of perennials or even bushes. Its superb artichoke-like flowers, of a bright violet-blue, emerge in early summer from an imposing shrub of large, grey-silver, dissected, undulate and patterned leaves, occupying a good square metre. Each plant, a true work of art, is a decoration. More often biennial than perennial, the cardoon perpetuates itself abundantly through spontaneous sowing.

The cultivated cardoon, Cynara cardunculus var.altilis (Synonym C.cardunculuc subsp cardunculus), is a cousin of the artichoke, also called Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus, whose floral buds we consume. It is a plant of the aster family, native to the Mediterranean basin. It is found in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and North Africa. In France, it is present in Gard, Hérault, Aude, Pyrénées-Orientales and Corsica. In these regions, the wild form grows spontaneously on arid slopes and along paths.

The cultivated form is a biennial or short-lived perennial plant. In the first year, it develops a clump of leaves with a wide and spreading habit that persists in winter. Each leaf can measure up to 60 cm (24in) in length and 30 cm (12in) in width. Their thick and undulate lamina, silver on the upper side and covered with a grey-white down on the underside, is deeply divided into many tapered segments at their tips. The long petiole, which extends into the main vein of each leaf, is wide and fleshy.

The flowering occurs in the second year, usually in June-July, depending on the climate. From the centre of the clump of leaves emerge tall, ramified stems, which can rise up to 1.50 m (5ft) or 2 m (7ft) from the ground. Each branching carries a large 5 cm (2in) diameter flower head composed of numerous mauve florets enclosed in a globose, scale-like, fleshy receptacle. The nectar-rich flowering gives way to seeds appreciated by birds. They will easily germinate in loose soil and produce a beautiful plant ready to bloom in 2 to 3 years.

Plant the cardoon in isolation or at the back of a bed of lower perennials, where its size, habit and colour will work wonders. The cardoon is undoubtedly architectural and deserves more than a place in the vegetable garden. It is a plant of architecture and contrast, whose extraordinarily bright foliage enhances all its neighbours, from roses to chrysanthemums and daylilies, from royal lilies to large daisies, from lush grasses to kniphofias, without overshadowing their simple or more sophisticated beauty. This plant is not lacking in originality and is also easy to cultivate in the sun in any good garden soil. Its flowers are used in dried bouquets. They resemble thistle flowers, from which this plant takes its name in Provençal (Cardo).