Growing Hybrid Hypericum
Hypericum (St. John’s Wort) has long been valued for its medicinal uses. In particular as a treatment for mild and moderate depression. Wild versions of the plant are found in many environments around the world except for some tropical areas, deserts, and polar climates.
They can be grown reliably in zones 5-11. But Farmer Bailey reports they have successfully overwintered them in field plantings in USDA zone 3 with plenty of snowfall. We are zone 4 and we planted ours into an unheated tunnel where they would be protected from wind and cold temperatures
Hypericum shrubs bloom twice a season with a grouping of florets on each branch and colorful berries that form shortly thereafter. Once all petals have dropped and berries are fully formed, the branches can be harvested as long-lasting foliage with beautiful berries. Hybrid hypericum isgrows a staple of the conventional floral industry. But they haven’t really been picked up by the smaller flower farm movement yet. This is largely due to past availability issues.
Why should we consider growing it?
We’re interested in growing these hybrids for several reasons:
They are closely related to the wild hypericum that grow easily here. Easy, cold hardy perennials are music to our ears.
We’re always looking for more hardy foliage. Reliable, long-lasting perennial foliage is hard to come by in our climate. We have many evergreens to choose from, but deciduous plants are harder to find.
Hybrid hypericum offers both leafy, branchy foliage and colorful berries. The berries are rugged and don’t drop.
The colors represented by the different hybrid series are varied. If we can learn to grow this plant well, we will be able to put it to use for us in many ways.
Ordering:
Hybrid hypericum in a variety of colors is difficult to find and protected by plant propagation patents. You won’t find these special varieties at your local garden center. We purchased our tissue culture hypericum plants from Farmer Bailey. You can also find them from other wholesale purveyors of Gro n’ Sell products.
Farmer Bailey offers 2 different series of hypericum bred by Danziger. The first is the ‘Globo’ series and the second is the ‘Brisk’ series. The berry colors available through this series include red, green, white, pink, coral, and burgundy - a versatile range that can compliment any floral palette.
The plants are offered as half trays (50-cell trays) for $61 each. (One dollar and change per plant.) To make the most of your shipping fee, order the equivalent of 3 full trays (the capacity of Gro n’ Sell shipping boxes).
Planting Schematic:
Danziger recommends planting their varieties at a rate of about 20-24 plants per square meter. This is about 9-inch spacing on a 4ft wide bed. I would think that these plants would grow much larger if provided the space, but the instructions are for cut flower production, so I’m looking forward to seeing how these plants fill out in their second season. In their first season, they grew about 12 inches wide and 2 feet tall with about 2-4 harvestable stems each. We were able to harvest from them in our first season and were delighted to tuck them into many bouquets and arrangements in late summer. We’re hoping to see an earlier flush and a late-season flush in future seasons as described above.
A culture sheet for growing Danziger hypericum in optimal conditions has been added to the Downloads section of the member area.
Unheated Tunnel Perennial Production
As you may have heard me say before, we are investing more and more in transitioning the majority of our farm’s production in the direction of perennials. The low cost of these tissue culture hypericum make them a no-brainer. We no longer consider our valuable tunnel space as “turn and burn” annual planting areas. Instead of trying to cram three different annual crops into those spaces each season - with a tremendous amount of work in between, we’re looking to identify useful perennials that can fill a gap in our production. Because these unheated spaces allow us to grow a zone earlier I’m interested mostly in plants that otherwise can’t survive here. Wild hypericum do just fine in the weedy meadows nearby, but these hybrids would be a gamble. I also like that the tunnel protects them from frost - so there is an extended harvest season for us several weeks longer than we’d otherwise be able to enjoy them.
Closing thoughts:
We are optimistic about these plants. The warmth of the soil and cover of the unheated tunnel is unquestionably aiding them this winter. They are putting on new growth at soil level. We’ve pruned them down to about 10-12 inches. We’re curious to see how they may be affected by rust in the future- we saw some at the end of the last season.
We are trying 300 hypericum plants at our farm in an unheated tunnel at the recommended spacing. We have not yet felt the need to add support netting or shade cloth in the summer. We have 50 each of the following varieties, and we’ll report back to you about how they fare this winter and what happens next spring and summer!
Globo Coral
Globo Burgundy
Brisk Mint
Brisk Campari
Brisk White Coconut
Brisk Cosmopolitan
Hope you found this post helpful. Please share a comment below if you have any questions.
