Greek Mullein

Add drama and height to your garden with these bountiful candelabra sprays of yellow blooms, which are great for pollinators and medicine making. Like other mulleins, this plant has a wide, low-growing blue-grey rosette of broad leaves, from which springs a tall flower spike in its second year. This is a short-lived perennial that sometimes acts like a biennial. Native to Greece and the Olympus mountains in Turkey.

Photos by Daniel MacPhee at Blackbird Rise.

Days to maturity: Flowers in second year

Seeds per pack: 200

Germination rate: 80% on 12/16/2024

Planting / harvesting notes

Plant indoors before frost to get a head start by broadcasting over a potting mix and later dividing and potting up. Direct sow in the garden in early spring. Plants can grow 2-3" wide if given the space. Consider growing this herb in disturbed soils outside your main garden space.

Seed keeping notes

Wait until the flower stalks dry out and become crispy brown. On a dry day, cut the entire stalk below the lowest seed pods and whack the stalk in a bucket. Sift out the larger plant parts.

Collections