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Has anyone tried growing Peltaria alliacea ("garlic cress")? It… | Edible Gardening | Planta community

Filipendula

Has anyone tried growing Peltaria alliacea ("garlic cress")? It should be a hardy perennial, but the foliage on mine has solidly died back since flowering and I'm not sure if I should be concerned. It could just be what this plant sometimes does (new to my collection since last year), or it could be due to the drought we've been having here. Wondering if I should be attempting to rescue any still living material, or collect seeds etc. before it's too late.

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  1. Waspinator

    It should be an evergreen, and looking at sightings on Inaturalist, it's uncommon to see many dead leaves. It's probably unhappy from the drought. Personally I'd try to do seeds as a backup and try to save the main plant. Also from what I've seen of two close relative species, it's a very durable plant and should bounce back as long as it gets care. Garlic mustard and garlic penny cress both grow like weeds here, and they'll happily grow in cracked pavement like dandelions

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    • Filipendula

      Thanks. It had micro irrigation while I was on holiday, so I'm surprised as I agree it should be a robust plant, but maybe flowering at the same time as the heat exhausted it. It also mostly seeded whilst I was away, but I'll go see if there's any left that I can salvage. For the other plants you mention, I think you mean Alliaria petiolata and Mummenhoffia alliacea (had to look that second one up as never heard of it). If so, although these are in the same family, I wouldn't say they're very closely related given they belong to different genera. Plenty of Brassicaceae are also annuals or short-lived perennials, which is why I suddenly worried Peltaria might be an example of the latter, even if usually described as a perennial.

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