How To Plant Comfrey... And What NOT To Do!

A few years ago I planted comfrey in one of my flower gardens.  Comfrey has a lot of wonderful medicinal properties, so I thought it'd be good to have on hand. I had heard that this herb grows profusely, and sorry to say I’ve had to learn my lesson the hard way!

Comfrey leaf and root are the two most useful parts of this plant, and I’ve found them to be some of the most effective natural remedies that our family uses.  When Lisa presents her seminar and demos on natural remedies--I hear her mentioning comfrey also.  This plant is BIG in more ways than one!

This Stuff Grows!

Within a year or two from the time I first planted a small piece of the root, the comfrey in my flower garden had grown exponentially!  It grew so fast each summer that it would get to be about 5’ tall and several feet wide.  Once it gets much taller than that, it becomes so top heavy that it falls over on the ground.  It’s a perennial plant so comes back every year, larger and larger each time.

I think it was 2 years ago that I took several root sections from the plant in my flower garden and planted them next to our red raspberry patch in our main garden.  The reason I planted them there was that since it’s a perennial I needed to plant in an area that we wouldn’t be tilling each spring.  By this summer these 3 plants had grown so large that they were pushing back the raspberries, much to my dismay.

It Was Time To Make a Move...

So several days ago I decided to dig up the comfrey and replant it in another place--but THIS TIME I’m going to plant them in containers first and then dig a hole to put the container in!  This will keep it from spreading.  Here’s what I’ve done so far:

First I cut the comfrey back close to ground level, and put the comfrey foliage out on racks made from wire fencing to dry.  Next I dug up the roots of the first plant.  That was a job--I was amazed at the large root system!  But that made me happy, since comfrey root is so valuable as a natural remedy.  So that’s where I am right now--I still have two more large root systems to dig up and then replant a portion in several containers.  Then Lisa is going to take the roots and the leaves and prepare them for use.

Like a Weed, It Keeps Coming Back!

It didn't take long before those plants that I dug up, started poking back up through the ground. I thought I had dug out all the roots, but alas, I must not have been successful. Because there it was, growing in the same spot I had dug it up. So, make a note to yourself when growing comfrey: Don't plant it in your garden!!