I shouldn't affect blooming since the point of pollination is to set seed, not flower.

However, realize that feverfew can be a very aggressive, weedy plant, so make sure you want it before putting some in the garden. It's shallow rooted, so shouldn't compete too much with large roses.

The variety I have chosen seed for is very double, white, about 12-20 inches high, and seems like it would pretty alongside. Here's a picture of Snowball Feverfew:

However, I will keep your warning in mind about it becoming aggressive and weedy. I am not sure what it looks like out of bloom. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

The picture did not post; I will try again:

I agree with MG. I have spent many hours weeding feverfew out of the public garden (I pull it each spring when the soil is soft and it returns from broken bits of roots). Surely there are other white perennials with "filler" potential that you could use instead.

It's not perennial, but self-seeds easily -- take a look at Orlaya grandiflora. It's like a better-behaved version of Queen Anne's Lace.

:-)

~Christopher

Also, the double form (or its seedlings) seem to revert to single in the blink of an eye, in my experience, anyway. I think it's very nice, though. Maybe should have a bed of its own where it can go to town?

Oh my goodness, that Orlaya Grandiflora is beautiful! Why have I never seen it before?! Tray after tray of annuals fill the summer greenhouse shelves, but to my recollection I have never seen it among them. Do they have a dwarf version of this? I am looking for a white filler about a foot up to about 20 inches tall.

Johnny's Select Seeds says that Orlaya doesn't do well in temps over 85 degrees. Does it keep going all summer for you Christopher?

I grow both the double & single form of feverfew in my garden, neither are aggressive. I grow them by my fruit trees as well as shrubs, roses, perennials & annuals. After a while they start looking ratty & I just clip them way down & in no time there's lovely fresh foliage closely followed by flowers. I wouldn't be without it. Oh, I just ordered Orlaya grandiflora from Annie's Annuals, it caught my eye in the catalogue.

Jane

The gopher ate my feverfew before the rose, but in the end ate both.

I scattered seed of Orlaya grandiflora and enjoy what pops up on its own now. I've done this with a few other self-seeding annuals. I haven't noticed it "doing poorly" when it's hot -- or, at least, no worse than other plants. The self-sown plants don't usually start flowering until just before the heat sets in, and they keep going lightly until frost. I didn't intend for them to be like "bedding annuals" but rather just random "fillers". From what I remember, they also attract some beneficials, being in the carrot family.

:-)

~Christopher

Yes, feverfew seeds readily and will take over if you let it. Personally, in parts of my garden I do let it do so -- but probably not near the more "mannered" roses or ornamentals. No, feverfew won't smother out the roses, but I do like having some around as I like growing plants with medicinal uses (a feverfew infusion is good to drink for migraines). I just have to remember to pull it up from places I don't want it.

The extent to which feverfew gets weedy or aggressive in your zone may depend on where you garden, and how tidy you like your beds. I'm in zone 5, and it must love our soil and or climate because feverfew spread EVERYWHERE in one season in my old yard and crowded out even established perennials. I agree that it wouldn't crowd out rose, being both short and shallow rooted, but any perennials at a similar height didn't stand a chance.

Also, mine got ratty after about a day and needed constant deadheading to look remotely tidy. I tend to be a "chaos" gardener, so if it bugged me it was pretty noticeable. Half of any given plant would look OK (like your pictures) and half would brown, dried, and crusty, and you couldn't easily deadhead the spent bits as the dry bits were often in the middle of a cluster.

Given how rampantly it reseeds for me, you may want to see it somewhere else in your climate before committing to it in your own yard. If you plant it and don't like it, at least in my zone you'd never get rid of it (those seeds would lie dormant everywhere). Fortunately for me, this was planted in my old house "trial garden", so I'm not stuck with it here.

A better and less white fill-in plant in my zone would be alyssum, but this might be a weed in other zones.

Cynthia

Thank you to everyone for your input. I am probably going to toss the tray of feverfew seeds I just started. I do not want to start something I may regret for years. This was just the kind of advice I needed. So often you see a photo of a beautiful bloom, but wonder what the rest of the plant looks like, and what the "bad traits" of the plant might be, as the catalogs rarely tell you that.

Feverfew spreads enthusiastically here, too. Also it is perennial here, meaning it is one of the tender perennials grown as if they were annuals in climates with cold winters.

noseometer: I thought I was the only one that experienced feverfew the way you do & we have such different climates.

Jane

All of the sources when I googled feverfew said it was a perennial, not an annual. So, I thought perhaps it was a tender perennial - they come back from the plants or roots in warm areas (like my impatience, which have overwintered the past 6 winters), but not in cold ones. However, I found two sources that said it was cold hardy to zone 5, so now I am really confused! Looks lovely - it is actually some sort of short daisy.

Jackie

My unnamed dbl. feverfew is not as rampant a reseeder as is Orlaya grandiflora (3rd year and coming up thickly). Here in very mild winter part of z9, feverfew is what I would call a woody perrenial. It is not a rampant reseeder like the forget-me-nots, nigella, papaver somniferum and Impatiens balfourii . Probably because I deadhead or maybe because of heavy soil.

Since it gets a woody base, after 4 years or so I remove it, making sure there is a seedling around. I love its fresh clean look, the ferny foliage, the 20-inch height. Lasts well in bouquets. Looks well with orange calendulas. Actually haven't found anything it doesn't accommodate. After 20 years of reseeding no singles have shown up.

PS: I think the feverfew looks better by the roses than the Orlaya! Shock.

I am in zone 5, and decided not to take any chances...I cancelled my order for White Finch Orlaya seed, and dumped the feverfew seed tray I had started. I am going to go with white sweet alyssum and Festival Star dwarf baby's breath around the roses. It would be interested to see any pictures anyone has of Orlaya or feverfew around the roses.

Bad color combo with 'Paradise' and disappointed with the 'Evelyn' combo. Better with poppies.IMO.

Orlaya with 'Paradise' HT

Orlaya with 'Evelyn' rose and Papaver 'Drama Queen'.

Ha! I think I have figured out some of the contradictions above (annual/perennial; reseeds massively/does not; invasive or not; woody or not; and the PICTURES!).

We appear to be talking about 2 completely unrelated plants - chrysanthemum parthenium (aka tanacetum perthenium) and orlaya grandiflora. The former is a type of daisy (perennial), looks like a daisy, talks like a daisy, walks like a daisy, etc. The latter is an annual, looks related to Queen Anne's Lace. Look at the pictures - the ones posted by Irisgal directly above are orlaya grandiflora. The one posted higher up by Vickysgarden is a version of the daisy one.

This is what we get for using only a common name - many totally unrelated plants have the same common name. Although when I looked on the web I must say that I never found any reference to orlaya gradiflora being called "feverfew", that does not mean it is not called that somewhere.

Jackie

I mentioned Orlaya grandiflora as an alternative to feverfew, not as a plant aka "feverfew".

:-)

~Christopher

Yes! I love the feverfew in my OG rose garden, single or double. If I am not admiring where it plants itself, I jerk up and shake the seeds elsewhere. Works! Gives my garden the lived-in informal feel I'm after. Hey, SoCal, and down by the border witit.