The Giant Flower That Can Make A Major Statement In Your Drab Garden

Giant plants add a huge amount of impact to your garden and can be a unique way to make your tiny garden look much more spacious. This current trend for maximalism can create a dramatic flair to your exterior space, even making it feel like a sculpture garden with the large-scale look. There are several giant plants and flowers to choose from, but the globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus) is one of the most impressive and easiest to work with.

Growing three to five feet tall and three feet wide, globe artichokes are a great way to refresh your backyard landscape on a budget, with prices for seed packets starting around $3. They also taste wonderful, but if left unharvested, they will produce purple thistle-like flowers as their rounded buds open up. These flowers are a big attraction for bees and insects, and are a great way to bring more pollinators into your yard and garden. Combined with stunning jagged silver foliage, globe artichokes are a simple way to make a dramatic statement in your garden, providing interest and depth at the back of flowerbeds.

Globe artichokes are fans of warmth and full sun, needing free-draining soil to thrive. However, once established, they need very little maintenance, which makes them a great choice for low-effort gardening. You can buy globe artichokes as seeds or plug plants, and it's important to plant them about five feet apart, as they tend to clump and can become congested over time. This means you will need to divide and replant them further apart every four or five years.

These plants are also suitable for propagation, allowing you to clone the parent plant and giving you more globe artichokes for free. Look for the offsets growing around the base of the mature plant. These small shoots come with their own roots, making them the best candidates for propagation. Make sure you're using a sharp knife to gently separate the offset along with a portion of the root system and plant it straight away. Add a layer of mulch and a slow-release fertilizer, making sure to water it well. July and August are the best times to harvest flower buds, and you'll want to look for a bud that has reached full size but is still tightly closed. Overall, with their bold presence and easy care, the globe artichoke is a standout choice for those who want to make a big impact in their garden with minimal effort.