Comfrey is a super plant. It grows very easily from root pieces or crowns. Expect it to establish in one year and be full size a year or two after that!
The hanging purple flowers of comfrey are very pretty in mid to late spring. They are a great early nectar flow for bumblebees. Best practice is to make sure to only cut comfrey for mulch after the bumblebees have enjoyed the flowers!
Comfrey has a long history of use in herbalism as both an external and internal healer of wounds.
The plant processes and absorbs a lot of nutrients from the soil and accumulates these nutrients in leaves and flower stems (this is called dynamic accumulation), and is particularly high in potassium and silicon (see https://unadillacommunityfarm.org/dynamicaccumulators/) . The leaves and stems can be cut to the ground multiple times in a year and used as a nutrient rich green mulch around other plants or in JADAM style liquid fertilizers.
Root pieces are small pieces of root that will form an entirely new plant quickly with minimal care. Just plant the root piece in the ground. Weed around it the first season for best results! See this video for an easy planting technique https://youtu.be/-a3rmspuUng?si=ZRKUz71Pj-Bjnr-O
Growth Parameters:
*** Keep in mind that comfrey will stay in its planting location for quite a while (I hate to use the word “permanently”, but it may apply fairly here). We offer the sterile “Bocking 14” variety, so these plants will not spread by seed, but if you try to pull the plant from the ground, any little root pieces that remain will become new plants!
Root pieces will be labeled with the correct orientation for planting, with an arrow that will indicate which direction is up (“up” is closer to the soil line and the air). If you lose orientation it’s not a big problem, just plant roots or crowns on their sides.
Comfrey should do well in all but very dry soils (think New Mexico), and can tolerate quite a bit of shade as well. Get a plant established with a lot of sun, then propagate into deeper and deeper shade to see how it does.
At maturity expect a plant about 2-4 feet tall and about 4 feet wide.
