Yarrow can come in a bright yellow variety, but it can also be red or pink.
How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Yarrow Plants
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a native North American plant that’s popular with pollinators and practically care-free, making it perfect for borders, ground covers, and open meadows. Here’s how to grow yarrow in your garden!
About Yarrow
Sold as a hardy and versatile perennial, yarrow has showy flower heads composed of many tiny, tightly-packed flowers rising above clusters of ferny foliage. The flowers may be yellow, red, pink, or any shade in between.
Yarrow is pest-resistant, drought-resistant, attracts butterflies, and is excellent for cutting and drying.
The plant is also an aromatic herb which has many healing properties!
Note: Despite yarrow’s many beneficial characteristics, it can also be an invasive grower that readily pushes out its neighbors. Plant responsibly!
How to Grow Yarrow
- Add a thin layer of compost around your plants each spring to keep them fed.
- Yarrow is very drought tolerant, but if you receive less than 1 inch of rain a week in the summer, remember to water your plants to keep them looking their best.
- Cut off (“deadhead”) flowers when they start to fade in mid-summer; this encourages most varieties to produce another round of flowers.
- Divide yarrow plants every 3 to 5 years to sustain vigorous, healthy plants. Lift the clumps in early spring or fall and remove any dead stems from the center of the clump. You can replant the divisions elsewhere in the garden or share with a friend!
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When I was a child, about eight years old, I got a very bad cold which progressed into a hospital visit. Couldn't breathe and very high fever for days. We were very poor, and since we couldn't pay the hospital, they sent me home. My Grandfather brought some herbs to my mother and told her to make a tea from the dried leaves and flowers which she did. It was very, very bitter and she made me drink many, many cups of the brew. The fever broke in less than 24 hours and I was back to school in a week. My Grandfather was a naturalist. He had brought Yarrow to my mother and probably saved my life. I now grow many different colors of yarrow, but always save the White Yarrow for illness. Always plant in poor soil as it is invasive.
I grew up in Montana, and the white variety grows wild there. A Native American friend told us that a poultice of chewed flowers and saliva will help ease bee and wasp stings, and we verified that on several occasions. It stops the pain and swelling in under 10 minutes.
So does plantain the narrow leaf and broad leaf
I cut the dead dry heads of Yarrow, hang them up somewhere to completely dry out, remove the seed heads, grind them into a fine powder and store them to use in case of an injury, to stop the bleeding, the powder immediately forms a clump on the open would and stops the bleeding, it can be left as an antiseptic dressing. It worked equally well on a friend who takes Warfarin and he always makes sure he has some of my powder in stock.
most of the native yarrow Ive seen have white compacted flowers; I've never seen Yellow Native Yarrow; I used Yarrow as a solar tea; put cold water + yarrow blossoms in a glass jar; put in sun for the day; use for tea; Yarrow Tea makes a nice hair rinse; Ive used Yarrow Tea as herbal tea; solar tea; bath water; foot soaks; and more !!!
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