Gadenin日本語Get the appThe one job that matters: cut it to the ground in early summer
Lovage leaf is at its best young. By early summer the spring growth has coarsened, the stems are hollow and stringy, and the flavor has turned from savoury to harsh. At the same time the plant is preparing to throw a flower stem. The single most useful thing you can do is cut the whole plant to within two inches (5 cm) of the ground before or just as the flower stem starts to extend.
It looks brutal and it is not. Within ten days new shoots push from the crown, and inside three to four weeks you have a fresh mound of tender, bright green leaf that is better eating than anything the plant produced in spring. That second flush stays usable until the first hard frost. A plant left uncut gives you tough leaf, six feet (1.8 m) of flowering stem and, later, a scatter of seedlings you did not ask for.
Water and feed straight after the cut. A gallon (4 liters) of water and a scatter of a balanced general fertilizer at the crown turns the regrowth around noticeably faster. In a hot, dry summer, mulch the cut crown as well so the new shoots do not emerge into baked ground.
- Take the whole plant, not a tidy trim Cut every stem at two inches (5 cm) with shears or a sharp knife. Half-measures leave old hollow stems standing in the middle of the new growth, and those collect water and rot at the base.
- Feed and water immediately Apply a balanced feed at the crown and water it in well. The plant is about to rebuild its entire canopy from stored root reserves and it recovers faster if the ground is wet.
- Cut a second time if the season is long In a mild climate with a late first frost, a second cut about eight weeks after the first gives another flush. Stop cutting six weeks before your usual first hard frost so the crown goes into winter with leaf on it.
- Clear the cut material away Do not leave the cut stems lying on the crown. They mat down, hold moisture against the new shoots and are exactly where slugs will spend the next fortnight.
Flower or leaf: you cannot have both from one plant
Once lovage commits to flowering it stops making good leaf. The stem shoots up to six feet (1.8 m), carries flat yellow-green umbels through midsummer, and the basal leaves yellow and coarsen while it does so. If leaf is what you want, remove the flower stem as soon as it is recognizable, when it is a thick pale shoot rising from the center of the clump.
There are reasons to let one flower. The seed is a spice in its own right, warm and celery-like, and the umbels are heavily worked by hoverflies, parasitic wasps and small bees, which is useful in a vegetable garden. The compromise on a single plant is to let it flower every second or third year and cut it back hard the rest of the time.
If you do let it flower, decide what happens to the seed. Lovage self-seeds freely and the volunteers appear in paths and gravel where a taproot is difficult to remove. Either cut the umbels while the seed is still green-brown and dry them under cover, or accept that you will be weeding out seedlings the following spring.
| Decision | Cut the flower stem | Let it flower |
|---|---|---|
| Leaf quality after midsummer | Tender second flush until frost | Coarse and bitter, little worth picking |
| Plant height | Stays a 2 to 3 foot (60 to 90 cm) mound | Up to 6 feet (1.8 m), may need staking |
| Seed | None | A generous crop for cooking or sowing |
| Insects | No benefit | Heavily worked by hoverflies and small wasps |
| Follow-up work | Feed and water after cutting | Deadhead or expect self-sown seedlings |
| Effect on the crown | Vigor goes into root and leaf | A season of seeding sets the plant back slightly |
Water, feed and the things you can skip
An established lovage has a taproot that reaches well below the depth most herbs manage, so it survives dry spells that flatten parsley and coriander. That does not make it drought-proof for eating quality. Leaf grown under real water stress is tough and the flavor turns acrid. In a dry spell give one deep soaking a week, at least two gallons (8 liters) at the crown, rather than daily sprinkling.
Feeding is modest. Lovage is a leaf crop and responds to nitrogen, but overfeeding gives soft growth that aphids find first. A mulch of compost in early spring, plus one balanced feed after the summer cut, covers a plant in decent ground for the whole year. On sandy soil add a second liquid feed midway through the second flush.
Skip staking unless you are flowering the plant in an exposed position. Skip pinching, tip-training and any of the shaping you might do on a shrub, because lovage regrows entirely from the crown and shaping the top achieves nothing. Skip winter protection in all but the coldest gardens; the top dies back and the root is hardy well below freezing.
Yellowing lower leaves in midsummer on an uncut plant are normal senescence, not disease. On a plant you cut back in early summer, yellowing new growth means either waterlogging or a nitrogen shortage, and the two are told apart by how wet the soil is an inch (2.5 cm) down.
Keeping a record that pays off
The two dates worth writing down every year are the date you cut the plant to the ground and the date the second flush became usable. The gap between them is remarkably consistent for a given garden, usually three to four weeks, and once you know your own figure you can time the cut so the fresh leaf arrives exactly when you want it.
Also note the date the flower stem first appeared. That is your cue for the following year: cutting a week before that date reliably prevents flowering, while cutting a week after it means the plant has already spent energy on a stem you then threw away.
If you let the plant seed, record how many volunteer seedlings you found the next spring and where. A plant that scatters into a gravel path is worth deadheading every year; one whose seedlings all land in a bed you were going to dig anyway is not a problem.