Daucus carota ‘Dara’ is one of the most beautiful lacy flowers you can grow. Flowers range from palest pink to deepest burgundy, all are lovely and quite perfect for adding a light touch to a bunch of cut flowers. You may know Daucus as the Wild Carrot, the Chocolate Lace Flower or False Queen Anne’s Lace. Although it’s part of the carrot family this plant is not edible!
Daucus carota Dara has long stems and feathery foliage topped by large flowers in shades of burgundy and soft pink. Hundreds of tiny flowers make up each flower head and they are full of nectar which pollinating insects love. Like Ammi majus, Ducus adds a delightfully airy touch planted in drifts in borders. Daucus is good for cutting too… add them to mixed bunches of flowers to create a lovely contemporary look.
How to Grow Daucus Dara
Strictly speaking Daucus is a Biennial plant but you can treat it like a Hardy Annual so you can choose the flowering time. Sow Daucus Dara seeds in January or February indoors for flowers from May onwards, direct sow in April/May for flowers in summer and autumn. Sow in June to September as you would for other Biennial plants for flowers the following year.
The same applies to Daucus carota, the Wild Carrot which is the plain white version often used in wildflower meadows and wilder planting schemes.
There are full growing details for both in the shop if you’d like to know more about how to grow Daucus.
Both of them have amazing seed heads too.
In Flower Farming, Daucus Dara is known as a filler flower. All the the best bunches of blooms have plenty of foliage in them too… up to 50% is a good rule of thumb to hep your star flowers shine. Huge dramatic cut blooms like Dahlias and Roses really benefit from having frothy fillers in the vase with them. If you like to have a look at Rachel using Daucus Dara with her Dahlias on Gardeners World then here’s the link to the BBC iPlayer. You’ll see that Daucus Dara is lovely in flower arrangements and complements most blooms.
In the garden, Daucus grows well with other tall hardy annual fillers such as Orlaya, Ammi and Dill. The flat flower heads combine well with the spires of Larkspur and Antirrhinum and button flowers of Scabious and Cornflowers. That’s the beauty of lacy fillers… they go with more or less everything!
I’m growing lots more fillers for flowers in 2021. Not that I’m greedy or anything… but the more fillers I grow the more I love them. Daucus Dara in particular! If you love them too then you can buy Daucus carota ‘Dara’ seeds here. They’re in the in the shop now!
Which fillers are you growing for 2021?