Description Korean angelica (Angelica gigas) produces broad foliage clumps in its first year. The clumps shoot up into stout, 5- to 6-foot-tall, deep purple flowering stems in the second or third summer, with plump buds that split open to reveal domed, deep reddish purple flowerheads. The heads are often loaded with wasps, bees, and other pollinators. (The wasps may sound like a bad thing, but they’re so busy haunting the flowers that they’re unlikely to bother any respectful garden visitor. And anyway, the plants are so tall that you’ll keep them toward the middle or back of a border, where no one is likely to get too close to the flowers.) Korean angelica pairs handsomely with summer-blooming shrubs, such as hydrangeas; upright ornamental grasses, such as ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora); and tall flowering perennials, such as Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum), ‘Lemon Queen’ perennial sunflower (Helianthus), and white Japanese burnet (Sanguisorba tenuifolia var. alba). It can make an interesting cut flower in a large arrangement, too, if you can bear to remove it from your garden display. Full sun to light shade; average to moist soil. Usually biennial but sometimes a monocarpic perennial (meaning that it may take more than two growing seasons to bloom but will then die after it does); Zones 4 or 5 to 9. Collected in September 2024. (None of my plants flowered in 2025, so I won’t be collecting again until fall 2026.) At least 12 seeds per packet. Please note that these seeds have papery “wings” and pieces tend to break off in the packet during shipment; it may look a bit messy but it doesn’t seem to harm the seeds. Shipping to U.S. addresses only. Please read the germination information as well before ordering.
