Achillea millefolium 'SKYSAIL YELLOW'

Yarrow is a lovely perennial ideal for dry and neglected locations. Its several species are found naturally throughout Europe and Asia, and it was probably brought into other continents unintentionally. In the wild its flowers are most often yellow, white and exceptionally light pink, but breeders do the best to create plants with deeper colours and also stronger and shorter stems that will withstand heavy summer rains. It is widely used in herbal healing and in China it is considered a magical plant that protects its wearer by helping him get rid of fear and gaining courage. Find your courage to enhance your dry border with a colourful mix of these unpretentious perennials in order to create your own magic.

Skysail Yellow is a yarrow variety from the Skysail series brought by the Dutch company Dümmen Orange. It makes bright yellow flowers that turn beige to pale orange as they mature while the centres remain deep yellow. It begins to bloom in June atop short and firm stems only 30-40 cm in height, and if you regularly remove the stems down to the ground after flowering, new flowering stems will keep popping up until late summer. Deciduous leaves are delicate, bright green, larger near the ground and smaller along the stems, and finely incised like a fern leaf.

Yarrow is a typical summer perennial suitable for dry beds and borders. It can be combined tone in tone with other summer flowering perennials of a similar colour, or you can plant it among small shrubs to cheer up the landscape. I think that it is most beautiful in a pastel-coloured cottage garden style flower bed along with other drought-loving perennials such as gaura, verbena, knautia, scabiosa, coreopsis, gypsophila, centaurea and others.

Yarrow is a maintenance-free perennial suitable for standard flower beds as well as dry slopes and rockeries. It tolerates a wide range of soils except for boggy and wet. Full sun is needed for profuse flowering. Feeding is not necessary but will bring on new flowers sooner after deadheading. Fully hardy to -40°C (USDA zone 3).

Last update 07-07-2024