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Mullein
A dramatic biennial herb that thrives on the poor dry ground nothing else wants: a soft flannel rosette the first year, a 5-8 foot yellow flower spike the second. Grown for leaf and flower tea. Also a noxious weed in two states, so cut the spike before it seeds.
Safety notes Leaf and flower are used as strained infusions, not as a salad green. Always strain leaf tea through cloth or a coffee filter - the fine leaf hairs irritate the mouth and throat. The SEEDS are toxic - saponin-rich, and historically crushed to stun fish, a use illegal almost everywhere - so keep seed out of every preparation. First-year rosettes are confused with deadly foxglove: mullein is thick and woolly-felted, foxglove thinly downy with toothed, net-veined leaves.
Overview
Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is the tall yellow spike you see on roadsides, gravel banks and burnt-over hillsides across North America, and it is one of the oldest respiratory herbs in Western tradition. It is a strict biennial and puts on two completely different performances. In its first year it makes a flat rosette of thick, pale, woolly leaves - genuinely like flannel to the touch, big enough to cover a dinner plate. In its second year it sends up a single unbranched 5-8 foot spike packed with small five-lobed yellow flowers, blooms all summer, sets an extraordinary quantity of seed, and dies.
The one thing to knowIt is a strict biennial and puts on two completely different performances.
Quick facts
- Sprouts in
- 16 daysRange: 10–30 days
- Soil temperature
- 70 °FRange: 55–80 °F
- Height
- 6 ftRange: 3–10 ft
- Spread
- 30 inRange: 18–36 in
- Cold
- Takes hard frostdamaged below -40°F
- Heat
- Struggles above 100°F
- Life cycle
- Biennial
- Save seeds
- Second yearafter overwintering a few plants
- Self-sows
- Yes, expect volunteers
- Soil
- Well-drained
- Water
- Low
- Plant spacing
- 18 inRange: 12–24 in
When to plant
Fall sowing is open for 1 more day. Next: spring, Mar 27 to May 10.
- Direct sow Aug 26 – Oct 20 Closes in 1 dayAbout 9 weeks before to 5 days before your first frost (Oct 25 here)Also works. Seed scattered in autumn either makes a small rosette before winter or waits and comes up in spring, in which case flowering is a season later than the dates shown here. Never bury it.
- Direct sow Mar 27 – May 10 Opens in 159 daysAbout 2 weeks before to 4 weeks after your last frost (Apr 10 here)The straightforward sowing. Surface-sow onto bare firmed ground as soon as it can be raked - light, not chilling, is what this seed needs. The rosette forms the same year and the spike follows the next summer.
Frost here: last around Apr 10 (Mar 27 to Apr 24 most years), first around Oct 25. Zone averages, your own yard may run a week or two either way.
Life stages
From the first start to harvest
Follow the growing sequence. Choose a stage to see its care and signs to watch for.
Stage 1 of 8 · The growing sequence
Germination
Day 0 to 16 from sowing
Care at this stage
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Surface-sow onto bare soil - do not cover the seed
Mullein seed is dust-fine and needs light to germinate. Scatter it onto raked, firmed bare ground, press it in with your hand or a board, and leave it uncovered. Seed buried even a quarter inch down is the single commonest reason a sowing never appears.
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Mist the surface, never soak it
Keep the top of the soil just damp until seedlings show, which takes 10-20 days in warm soil. A fine mist or a gentle sprinkle is right - a hose washes the seed away or buries it, and this plant hates sitting wet even as a seedling.
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Give it light and warmth, not a cold treatment
Mullein seed is not dormant and does not need stratifying. It germinates across a wide temperature range wherever light reaches it, fastest on warm soil around 70F. A month of damp chilling in the fridge is optional and can even up a patchy batch, but it is not what makes the difference - burying the seed is what stops it.
Stages can overlap; weather, variety, and growing conditions change the pace.
Harvest
- Year one: a rosette wide enough that you can take outer leaves and leave two-thirds behind
- Leaves picked on a dry morning, thick and felted, before the dew or after rain has gone
- Year two: yellow flowers open on the spike right now - they last a single day each
- Dried leaf is ready when the midrib snaps instead of bending
- Take outer leaves, leave the crown · every 2 weeks
- Dry the leaves fast and thoroughly
- Wear sleeves if the hairs bother you
Per plant 15 to 80 leaves, 4 to 32 ozPicking pick as they ripenFirst crop 0 to 1 yrs
Watch out for
7 to know. 3 are high-risk: Confusion with Foxglove Rosettes, Aggressive Self-Seeding & Spread, Root Rot. 3 are active in October.
Confusion with Foxglove RosettesSeverity High DisordernowSeason: Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Sep, OctAny hairy grey-green rosette in a bed you gather from that you cannot positively identify.
Sharpest for mullein because the harvest is the first-year rosette, in exactly the season and the ground where foxglove rosettes look most like it. Watch a plant flower once before you ever harvest from it, and if that is not possible, buy dried mullein rather than guessing.
Any hairy grey-green rosette in a bed you gather from that you cannot positively identify. The reliable discriminator is the texture and thickness of the felt: mullein leaves are THICK and densely woolly on both surfaces, like flannel or felt, pale grey-green, with smooth or barely wavy edges and no strong toothing. Foxglove leaves are thinner, greener, only softly downy rather than woolly, distinctly scalloped or toothed along the edge, and strongly net-veined on the underside. Comfrey and borage are bristly and rough to the hand rather than soft. Foxglove rosettes appearing downwind of a plant that was allowed to seed the previous summer are the classic trap.
If there is any doubt at all about a leaf, discard it - no herbal preparation is worth the gamble. Suspected ingestion of foxglove, including tea brewed from its leaves, is a medical emergency: call poison control or emergency services immediately without waiting for symptoms to appear, and take a piece of the plant with you if you can.
Keep the two plants in separate parts of the garden rather than in adjacent labelled beds - physical separation is far more reliable than identification on a dim spring morning. Do not allow foxglove to seed anywhere near a bed you harvest from, pull volunteer rosettes on sight, and mark the position of every plant you sowed deliberately. Gather leaves only from a plant you planted yourself and know the position of, and never from a wild rosette you did not watch flower.
First-year mullein makes a flat basal rosette of soft, hairy, grey-green leaves - and so does foxglove, which is a cardiac poison whose glycosides are not destroyed by drying or brewing. Documented fatal poisonings have come from exactly this kind of mistake: a hairy rosette gathered as a herbal tea plant and infused. The two germinate in the same open, disturbed, well-drained ground, foxglove self-sows prolifically, and the risk is highest in spring and autumn when both are small and neither is in flower. Comfrey and borage rosettes belong to the same confusion cluster; of the group, only foxglove is deadly.
Aggressive Self-Seeding & SpreadSeverity High DisordernowSeason: Aug–NovRipe seed heads or stalks shedding onto the ground, and a flush of volunteer seedlings coming up well beyond where the parent plant stood - most obvious in the first weeks of the plant's growing season.
The defining problem with this plant and the reason it is rated Caution. One spike carries over 100,000 seeds, they germinate on any bare disturbed soil, and they stay viable in the ground for decades - buried Verbascum seed has germinated after a century. Common mullein is a listed noxious weed in Colorado and Hawaii. The whole fix is one task: cut and bag the spike while the capsules are still green and closed, and never leave a cut stalk lying on the ground or the compost heap.
Ripe seed heads or stalks shedding onto the ground, and a flush of volunteer seedlings coming up well beyond where the parent plant stood - most obvious in the first weeks of the plant's growing season.
Hoe or hand-pull volunteers while they are small and before they set seed - the existing seed bank will keep germinating for several seasons either way, so this is an ongoing job rather than a single fix. Where the volunteers are themselves edible, harvesting them is the easiest control, but only ever eat or grow on a seedling you can positively identify.
Cut, deadhead or harvest the seed heads before they ripen and shatter, which is far easier than dealing with what they drop. Where the plant is grown deliberately, keep it in defined rows or a contained bed so that volunteers are obvious, and site it only where naturalizing is welcome.
Not a pest but a management issue. This plant sets and sheds seed prolifically, so anything left to ripen builds a persistent seed bank in the soil and returns as a heavy flush of volunteers the following season. Much of that seed stays viable for years, which is why one season of letting it go can take several seasons to undo.
Root RotSeverity High DiseaseSeason: Nov–MarWilting in the middle of the day on a plant whose soil is damp - the classic tell, and the reason people water a rotting plant and finish it off.
Crown and root rot in wet soil kills far more garden mulleins than any pest, and almost always over winter. The pattern is a rosette whose centre goes soft, brown and slimy after a wet spell. The causes are heavy clay, an irrigated or mulched bed, or water sitting in the crown of a flat rosette. Never mulch mullein for winter protection - it is hardy to about -40F and the mulch is the danger. Site it in gritty, sharply drained, sun-baked ground and give it no water once established.
Wilting in the middle of the day on a plant whose soil is damp - the classic tell, and the reason people water a rotting plant and finish it off. Leaves yellowing from the bottom up, dull off-color foliage, and growth that stalls for no visible reason. Whole shoots, or one side of the plant, collapsing while the rest still looks fine. Soft, dark, or mushy tissue at the base of the stem or at the crown, sometimes with a sour smell. Lift a failing plant and look at the roots: healthy ones are firm and pale, rotted ones are brown or black and slimy, and the outer layer slips off between your fingers leaving a thread of core behind. Seedlings that topple over at soil level are the same problem, called damping-off.
There is no cure for tissue that has already rotted, so act on the conditions rather than looking for a spray. Stop watering at once and fix the drainage - open up compacted soil, or move the plant to a raised, sharply drained position or a container. Lift a badly affected plant, cut away every soft dark root and rotted section with a clean blade back to firm pale tissue, and replant only the healthy parts into fresh free-draining soil or mix. Often the better move is to give up on the plant and save its offspring instead: cuttings, offsets, or divisions taken from firm healthy growth root readily and give you a clean start. Bin the rotted material rather than composting it, and correct the drainage before you replant, because the rot comes straight back in the same wet spot.
Drainage is the whole defense. Match the plant to the site first - something that wants sharp drainage will not survive heavy clay or a low, water-collecting spot however well you tend it. Where the ground is heavy, plant on a raised bed, berm, or slope, or grow in a container. Set plants at the depth they were already growing, since burying the crown or the root flare is a common cause of rot, and keep mulch pulled back a few inches from the stem base instead of piled against it. Water the soil rather than the calendar: check that the top inch or two is dry before watering again, cut back hard in cool weather and winter dormancy, and never leave a pot standing in a full saucer. Do not plant or dig in soggy ground, and go easy on rich amendments for plants that want it lean. Rotate annual crops, and start with clean healthy plants and fresh mix.
Root rot is not one organism but a group of soil fungi and water molds - Pythium, Phytophthora, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia and others - that sit harmlessly in most soils and only turn destructive when the ground stays saturated. Waterlogged soil drives the air out, the roots suffocate, and the weakened tissue is invaded and goes soft, brown, and stringy. Because the damage is underground you usually see it first as something that looks like drought: wilting, yellowing, stunting, a plant that does not respond to being watered. Overwatering, heavy compacted ground, a low spot that collects runoff, a pot with no drainage or a saucer left standing full, and cold wet soil in winter are the usual causes. Once roots have actually rotted there is no cure - this is a problem you prevent rather than treat.
Slugs & SnailsSeverity Medium PestnowSeason: Mar, Apr, May, Jun, OctIrregular ragged holes chewed out of the middle of leaves and along the edges - not the clean-edged cuts a caterpillar leaves.
Only the seedling and young rosette stages are at real risk, and only in a wet spring - a mature woolly leaf is of no interest to them. Because mullein must be surface-sown where it is to grow, you cannot raise it in pots to skip the vulnerable stage, so protect the seedbed for its first month. Keeping mulch away from the crown, which this plant wants anyway, removes most of the daytime shelter.
Irregular ragged holes chewed out of the middle of leaves and along the edges - not the clean-edged cuts a caterpillar leaves. Seedlings that vanish overnight, or that are cut off at soil level with nothing left behind. Silvery dried slime trails across leaves, soil, pots, and paving in the morning: this is the giveaway that tells you it was mollusks rather than an insect. Chewed pits in ripe fruit, especially where it rests on the ground. Damage that shows up on the lowest, dampest leaves first and gets worse after rain or evening watering. Turn over a board, an upturned pot, or a clump of dense mulch during the day and look for the animals themselves sheltering in the cool underneath.
Hand-picking works and costs nothing: go out an hour after dark with a headlamp, drop what you find into soapy water, and repeat nightly for a week or two - persistence is what wins, not any single product. Shallow beer traps sunk to soil level catch them too, but need emptying and refilling daily to be worth anything. Iron-phosphate bait is the standard control and is far lower-risk around pets and wildlife than the old metaldehyde products, but it is not harmless: many formulations include EDTA, and a dog that eats a quantity of pellets can develop iron toxicosis. Scatter it thinly per the label, never in piles, and keep dogs off a baited bed. Clear fallen foliage and debris in autumn, where the eggs are laid. In a wet climate this is a population you manage each season rather than one you eradicate - and on most established plants light grazing is cosmetic and needs nothing at all.
Take away the daytime shelter first: lift boards and upturned pots, clear piles of debris, keep dense mulch pulled back from crowns and stems, and give crowded plantings enough airflow to dry out. Water in the morning rather than the evening so the surface is dry by the time they come out. Copper tape around containers and raised beds gives them a shock they will not cross, and it is the one barrier that reliably works. Get plants past the vulnerable stage quickly - start seedlings in pots and set them out at a decent size rather than direct-sowing into a cold wet bed, since most plants stop being worth defending once the leaves toughen. Leave the ground beetles, frogs, toads, and ground-feeding birds alone, because they eat mollusks all night for free and broad-spectrum slug pellets kill them too. Where thick-leaved or resistant varieties exist for what you are growing, they take far less damage.
Slugs and snails are nocturnal mollusks that rasp ragged holes in soft leaves, shear off seedlings at ground level, and chew into ripe fruit that touches the soil. They feed at night and in the early morning and spend the day hidden under boards, pots, dense mulch, leaf litter, and low foliage, becoming active in exactly the cool, damp, shaded conditions that suit young plants. Damage is heaviest in wet spells and on tender spring growth: a single wet week can erase a row of seedlings while an established, tough-leaved plant of the same species is barely marked. They lay clusters of small pearly eggs in damp soil and under debris, so a garden with plenty of cover carries a resident population year after year rather than being invaded from outside.
Spider MitesSeverity Medium PestSeason: Jun–SepFine pale stippling or speckling across the upper leaf surface, as though the color had been sandblasted out of it, and later a dull bronze or rusty cast over the whole leaf.
The most common pest on garden mullein, and the hot dry conditions the plant prefers are exactly the conditions mites prefer. The wool makes them hard to see, so check for dull stippled leaves and fine webbing tucked into the felt rather than looking for the mites themselves. Rarely more than cosmetic on a plant this tough - a hard hose-down of the leaf undersides on a few consecutive mornings usually settles it, and no spray is warranted on a leaf you intend to brew.
Fine pale stippling or speckling across the upper leaf surface, as though the color had been sandblasted out of it, and later a dull bronze or rusty cast over the whole leaf. Delicate webbing across leaf joints, shoot tips, and undersides - that comes with a heavy infestation and means you caught it late. Leaves that dry, curl, and drop early while the plant looks thirsty no matter how much you water it. Hold a leaf over a sheet of white paper and tap it: the specks that fall and then start walking are mites. With a hand lens, look on the undersides for the mites themselves, pale or reddish, and their round translucent eggs. Damage that shows up first on the hottest, dustiest, most sheltered side of a plant, or on a pot sitting near a radiator indoors.
Start with water. A strong jet aimed at the leaf undersides, repeated every few days for a couple of weeks, knocks populations down and breaks the cycle - on many plants that alone ends it. On anything that regrows quickly, shearing back badly infested growth resets the plant to clean foliage. If it keeps building, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the undersides where the mites actually live, and repeat every five to seven days for three rounds: contact sprays do not kill the eggs, so a single application always fails. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating - follow the label and observe its pre-harvest interval on anything you eat. Predatory mites are an effective release in a greenhouse or on an indoor plant. Above all, correct the heat, dust, and drought stress that caused it, or the mites simply come back.
Do not let plants get drought-stressed - that is the single strongest trigger, and a plant watered steadily through heat is far less likely to have a mite problem at all. Hose the foliage down, undersides included, during hot dry spells: it knocks mites off, washes away the dust they thrive in, and raises the humidity around the plant for a while. Indoors and under cover, keep the air from going hot, dry, and stagnant, wipe or rinse the leaves occasionally, and keep pots away from radiators and heating vents. Inspect any plant carefully before you bring it indoors for winter or set it among others, since mites almost always arrive on something else. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides: they wipe out the predatory mites, lacewings, and lady beetles that do most of this work for you, and reliably leave you with a worse outbreak than you started with.
Spider mites are not insects but tiny sap-feeding arachnids, smaller than a grain of salt, and you almost always notice the damage before you notice them. They live on the undersides of leaves and drain the cells one at a time, which is why the leaf goes finely stippled with pale dots before it bronzes and dries. They breed explosively in hot, dry, dusty, still air - a generation can pass in a week at high temperature - so a barely visible population becomes a webbed, bronzed plant within a fortnight. Drought-stressed plants and plants wintered indoors in dry heated air are the classic hosts. Broad-spectrum insecticides make matters worse rather than better, because they kill the predatory mites and lady beetles that normally hold mites in check.
2 more, low risk
AphidsSeverity Low PestSeason: May–JulDense clusters of tiny insects packed onto shoot tips, flower buds, and the undersides of young leaves.
Colonies gather on the soft flower spike and in the centre of the rosette rather than on the tough woolly leaves. Mullein is a well-known nursery plant for the ladybugs, lacewings and predatory bugs that eat them, so a colony here is usually feeding the garden's beneficial insects and is best left alone. Rinse harvested flowers before drying them.
Dense clusters of tiny insects packed onto shoot tips, flower buds, and the undersides of young leaves. Curled, cupped, or distorted new growth that never opens properly. A sticky shine on the leaves - and on whatever sits under the plant - that later goes black with sooty mold. Tiny white cast skins left behind where a colony has been feeding. Ants running steadily up and down the stems, which is often the first thing you notice. Mottled, streaked, or misshapen leaves that do not grow out can mean a virus the aphids brought with them rather than the feeding itself.
Knock the colonies off with a hard jet of water and repeat every few days - on most plants that alone ends it. Pinch out or prune off the worst-infested tips rather than treating the whole plant. If colonies keep rebuilding, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the insects, covering leaf undersides, and repeat weekly until they are gone; treat early or late in the day, and never spray a wilted or heat-stressed plant. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides - they kill the ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that were about to solve the problem for you, and aphid numbers usually come back worse afterward. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating; follow that label and observe its pre-harvest interval. On anything you eat, wash leaves, heads, and buds well before use, since aphids hide down in crowns, folds, and tight growth.
Go easy on nitrogen: the soft, lush growth that heavy feeding produces is exactly what aphids breed on. Check new growth once a week through spring and early summer so you catch colonies while they are still small, and rub the first few out with your fingers. Leave flowering plants nearby and skip broad-spectrum sprays - ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps do most of this work for free, and they only stay if there is something for them to eat. Keep ants off the plant where you can, since they protect aphids from those predators. Water steadily so plants are not stressed, and check any new plant over before you bring it home or move it indoors, since aphids usually arrive on something else.
Aphids are small soft-bodied sap-suckers - green, black, gray, pink, or waxy white, and mostly wingless - that gather in dense colonies on the tenderest new growth: shoot tips, buds, and the undersides of young leaves. They breed extremely fast in mild weather, so a few can become hundreds inside a week. Their feeding curls and distorts soft growth, and the sticky honeydew they excrete coats everything below and turns black with sooty mold. Ants often farm and defend the colonies for that honeydew. A few aphids are normal on almost any plant and a healthy plant shrugs them off; only dense, persistent colonies do real damage, and some aphids also spread plant viruses as they feed.
Powdery MildewSeverity Low DiseaseSeason: Jul–SepRound white powdery spots on the upper leaf surfaces that spread and merge until whole leaves look dusted.
Occasional and late, mostly on crowded plants or in a shaded, still corner where mullein should not be growing in the first place. Hard to spot against the white felt. Space plants 18-24 inches apart in full sun and it is a non-issue; do not spray a leaf you plan to dry for tea - just discard affected leaves.
Round white powdery spots on the upper leaf surfaces that spread and merge until whole leaves look dusted. It usually starts on the oldest, lowest, most shaded leaves and works upward, so check there first. Look at the undersides too, and at stems, buds, and flower stalks, which get coated as it advances. Leaves that yellow, brown, curl, or go crisp and drop early under the coating. New growth that opens small, crumpled, or twisted where the fungus has reached the shoot tips. On plants where it gets onto the fruit, a dull gray film, russeted or scarred skin, and cracking. Late in the season, tiny dark specks scattered through the white felt - that is the fungus setting up to overwinter on the debris.
Start early: sprays protect healthy tissue, they do not clean up leaves that are already coated. Pick off and bin the worst leaves as soon as you see them, and open the plant up by thinning or pruning so air moves through. On anything that regrows quickly, shearing the whole plant back forces a clean flush and beats spraying. If it keeps spreading, potassium bicarbonate, horticultural oil, or neem applied weekly will hold it - cover both leaf surfaces. Sulfur also works, but it burns the foliage of some plants, should never go on in heat, and must not be mixed with or applied close behind an oil spray. Whatever you use must be labeled for the plant you are treating: follow that label and observe its pre-harvest interval on anything you eat. Do not compost badly infected material. Late-season mildew on a plant that is finishing anyway is usually cosmetic; on a crop still filling out it is worth acting on.
Give plants room. Crowding and still air are the biggest single driver, so space at the full recommended distance, thin seedlings properly, and divide or prune out congested growth until air moves through the plant. Full sun and an open position help; deep shade and a still corner against a wall are where it always starts. Water at the base rather than overhead, and water early in the day so nothing stays damp overnight. Keep plants evenly watered - drought stress at the roots leaves them far more susceptible, even though the fungus itself likes dry air. Go easy on nitrogen, since soft lush growth is the most vulnerable. Where resistant varieties exist for what you are growing, choosing one is the single most effective thing you can do on a plant that mildews every year. Clear infected leaves and stems away at the end of the season rather than composting them.
Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that coats leaves - and often stems, buds, and fruit - in a white-to-gray powder that looks like spilled talcum. It is not one fungus but a large family of them, each fairly specialised to its own group of plants, which is why mildew on one crop rarely jumps to an unrelated one beside it. Unlike most leaf diseases it does not need wet leaves: it thrives on warm dry days followed by humid nights, and it takes hold fastest where plants stand crowded in still air or in shade. The coating blocks light, so heavily covered leaves yellow, brown, and drop early. On many plants that is mostly disfiguring and arrives late enough not to matter; where it strips away the leaves a crop still needed to finish, it costs you size, sweetness, and quality.
Good & bad neighbors
First rule: keep Apple apart. A documented mechanism, not garden lore.
Plant nearby
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Another colonizer of poor dry disturbed ground, and it fills at ground level while mullein occupies the vertical. Both resent watering and rich soil, so they can share a bed that gets no attention at all.
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Same requirements exactly - full sun, sharp drainage, lean soil, no mulch against the crown - which makes them reliable bedfellows in a gravel garden. The mullein spike gives height above the lavender's mound without shading it.
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A practical pairing rather than folklore: both want full sun, lean gritty soil and no irrigation, so they thrive on the same neglect in the same dry bank. Yarrow's flat flower heads and mullein's long spike also feed different pollinators across a long overlapping season.
- Traditional pairings, thin evidence
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A tidy medicinal-bed pairing: similar drought tolerance and sun needs, complementary bloom, and both are goldfinch magnets once seed heads form. Keep the mullein at the back - a 6-foot spike will shade a coneflower planted in front of it.
Keep apart
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A documented mechanism, not garden lore. Mullein is the principal summer host of the mullein plant bug (Campylomma verbasci), which then moves to apple and pear to lay overwintering eggs; its nymphs feed on fruitlets and cause dimpling and distortion. Extension programs specifically recommend removing mullein in and around orchards. Do not plant it near fruit trees.
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Vegetable beds and cultivated groundNot a compatibility problem but a seed-bank one. Mullein germinates on bare disturbed soil, which is precisely what a vegetable bed is, and its seed stays viable for decades. Keep it to an uncultivated dry corner, bank or gravel strip well away from ground you turn over every year.
Varieties · 5
You pick one when you add Mullein to your garden. Its days to maturity set your harvest window.
Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)
There are no named cultivars of common mullein, and that is not a gap in this list - the plant has never been through ornamental breeding, so seed is sold simply as mullein, common mullein or great mullein, all of it the straight wild species.
Variety details for Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)
Year one, a flat rosette up to 3 feet across of thick pale grey-green leaves densely felted with white wool. Year two, a single unbranched stalk 3-8 feet tall ending in a tight club-like spike of five-lobed yellow flowers, a few open at a time.
biennialmedicinalwoollydrought-tolerantThis is the one the herbal tradition means: unbranched, densely woolly, with the mucilage-rich leaves and yellow flowers used for tea and infused oil. If a packet names a cultivar or a colour, it is a different Verbascum species and not this plant.
Denseflower & Orange Mullein (Verbascum densiflorum, V. phlomoides)
Two close relatives that share common mullein's medicinal standing - in fact European pharmacopoeias list all three as acceptable sources of mullein flower (Verbasci flos), and V.
Variety details for Denseflower & Orange Mullein (Verbascum densiflorum, V. phlomoides)
Similar woolly biennials to 5-6 feet, with broader, flatter, distinctly larger golden-yellow flowers - up to about 2 inches across on V. densiflorum - and slightly less densely felted foliage.
biennialmedicinalpharmacopoeiallarger-flowersdensiflorum and V. phlomoides are the ones commercially grown for it because their flowers are noticeably larger and easier to pick. If you are growing mullein specifically for the flowers, for tea or for infused oil, these are worth seeking out. Grown exactly like V. thapsus, and they self-seed exactly as freely, so the same containment rule applies.
Greek Mullein (Verbascum olympicum)
A different species grown for looks rather than medicine: a silvery-woolly biennial or short-lived perennial that throws a branched candelabra of yellow flower spikes to 6 feet or more, far showier than common mullein's single club.
Variety details for Greek Mullein (Verbascum olympicum)
A large silver-grey felted rosette sending up a strongly branched candelabra of bright yellow flower spikes to 6-8 feet.
biennialornamentalbranchedtallHandsome at the back of a dry sunny border and a good pollinator plant. Not the herbal mullein, and it self-seeds as enthusiastically as its cousin, so cut the spikes before the capsules open.
Silver Mullein 'Arctic Summer' (Verbascum bombyciferum)
The mullein grown purely for foliage.
Variety details for Silver Mullein 'Arctic Summer' (Verbascum bombyciferum)
A near-white, densely woolly rosette to 2 feet across, and a silver-furred flower stem 4-6 feet tall carrying pale yellow blooms.
biennialornamentalsilver-foliagearchitectural'Arctic Summer' is a widely sold selection of V. bombyciferum with a striking rosette of near-white, thickly felted leaves and a tall silvered flower spike of soft yellow - the whitest foliage in the genus and the reason it appears in so many gravel and Mediterranean-style gardens. Ornamental only; do not substitute it for medicinal mullein.
Purple Mullein (Verbascum phoeniceum)
The odd one out: a short-lived perennial rather than a biennial, much smaller at 2-3 feet, with slender spires of flowers in purple, violet, rose or white above a nearly smooth dark-green rosette.
Variety details for Purple Mullein (Verbascum phoeniceum)
A low, dark-green, almost hairless rosette with airy 2-3 foot spires of purple, violet, rose or white flowers.
perennialornamentalcompactcolour-rangeIt is the parent of most of the coloured garden verbascums sold as plants. Grown for the border only - it has neither the wool nor the medicinal tradition of common mullein - but it is the tidiest and least invasive member of the genus for a small garden.
Grower tips
Notes from growers, tagged with the zone they grow in. A person reads every post before it appears.
Nobody has posted about Mullein yet. The first one usually saves someone a season.
Free account. Your post shows your grower name and zone, never your email.