Just wanted to share my excitement - these perennial artichoke plants are going strong in their 4th year here in the Netherlands!
They’re a Cardoon × Artichoke hybrid I grew from seed, and out of the original batch, six plants have survived our often chilly and wet winters. Most globe artichokes tend to die off after a year or two in our climate, but these have proven surprisingly hardy.
The plants are massive, beautiful, and a total pollinator magnet when in bloom. I’m hoping to start selecting seed from the hardiest ones to develop a local-adapted perennial strain.
Anyone else experimenting with perennial or climate-tough artichokes?
I got mine some 8 years ago from a seed swap in Holland. They stand two and a half meter tall. I tried Artichokes as well and have the same experience, they’re scribbly things that hardly flower and die after a couple of years. I want them to pollinate mine anyway, because people say their flowers taste better, although, funnily enough somebody from south of France who’d eaten them all her live said they were perfectly fine.
On my road trip into Spain i found quite some (artichokes i guess) that had escaped people’s road side food gardens and had established themselves in the wild. I figured that they must be some tough cookies surviving those droughts and heatwaves, i found seeds and brought those back home, one seems to be surviving.
So yes, i do experiment with them and find that your flowers differ from mine.
I got some 12 growing for now, but keep adding to the project. I like that they get so big and shade out grasses trying to enter my plots.
I’m working with artichokes in a climate they love. But here are some pictures of my favorites. I have trouble getting seed from the larger ones, they tend to rot in the middle before the seeds are ready. Cardoons set seed much more easily.
