Thistles in my new garden

[GardenerX]

Hello Everyone,

Ok mostly I post topics on Bonsai but with spring coming up soon I want to create a garden, I already have logs to make the border and I'm saving money till spring for soil and supplies but I was wondering, I'm half Scottish and half Irish so I wanted to plant something from over there so I got to thinking and I came up with the Thistle. Before I moved there was a field me and my friends would play baseball in, and Thistles would grow wild in the field they got pretty big to but even in winter they did great so I was thinking A THISTLE GARDEN but also I wanted to know if this would hurt anything envirementaly wise I know people can eat them if you know what your doing because my family has ate them before, I just don't want to hurt my yard or anything else......

[rainbowgardener]

Well I checked the TX noxious weeds list (here https://plants.usda.gov/java/noxious?rptType=State&statefips=48)

and thistle is not on it. It is usually considered a weed and a pretty aggressive one at that. But birds love it and it is food for some butterfly larvae. It's easy to grow (like a lot of weeds) and drought tolerant.

Your neighbors may not love you for it, if they get thistles popping up in their yard, but otherwise there's no real reason why you can't.

It would not be what most people would consider a pretty garden, but interesting and unusual. Depending on where you live, some places have weed ordinances (my friends that are trying to do a natural garden have run up against that), but if your garden is in the back and not visible from the street, you probably won't have trouble with that.

[MysticGardener67]

in thistles. From the huge variety of leaf forms to that ever so exquisit shade of ..well.. Thistle Pink blossoms.

I don't think there would be any reason why a thistle garden would not be a nice project. But like rainbowgardener stated, your neighbors may not be so enthusiastic as you are.

You will want to keep the spread pf thistles down. This means removing the flowerheads the moment they go to seed. Space them nicely and mulch them well. Might be a good idea to try to identify the different thistles you collect and mark them in your garden with common and botanacle names. It will give an air of 'legitamacy' to your garden.

[applestar]

Unless you have a specific thistle in mind, one way to grow thistles and not grow "weeds" is to plant cultivated culinary thistles: ARTICHOKE, for instance, and CARDOON . Also, there's the Milk Thistle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_thistle

Then we have Ornamental Thistle 'Atropurpureum' and Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro), among others.

[GardenerX]

wow thx guys, oh and I was thinking the Milk Thistle I like the deep purple it has on the head but I will need to look into those others.... is there a way to stop them from spreading other than decapitating them, maybe under my border I can sprinkle weed killer then put mulch on top to make it look a little prettyer I like the red mulch, it looks nice. I say mulch because I've heard it sepresses weeds. I think its mulch well I'm sure one of you will tell me, thx again......

[Runningtrails]

I have several thistles growing here, bull thistle, Canada thistle, globe thistle, some cultivated for the seed store and some growing in the wild pastures. I have some seeds for milk thistle that someone sent me last year. I have not planted it yet, already having more thistle here than I want.

I have a large group, about 12' x 12' of Canada thistle growing in the back pasture. (We despereately need a goat!). It spreads by underground runners as well as seeds and can quickly take over a large area. I would leave it alone.

Bull thistle gets to be about 7' tall with large flowers and is not as invasive as Canada thistle. It's a popular goldfinch food too. It would even look nice in the back of a perennial bed but you would need to cut the flower heads off before the seed matured. It reseeds prolifically. I have it coming up in the grass ever year. Maybe collect the seeds to feed the birds in the winter. It's beautiful and unusual. Birds like the thistle down in the spring for nesting.

I love the blue globe thistle in the perennial bed. It's a nice foil against the soft foliage and the blue balls add a lot to the look.

[applestar]

I think Bull Thistle is the one that one edible weed harvest advocate recommends. Can't remember his name at the moment. It has white downy growth on the underside of the leaves? Now what part was the edible portion...? I'm thinking base of the stalk...

A while ago, we were overrun by Canada thistle that stowed away in some mulch. It took two seasons to mostly eradicate them, and another season to systematically eliminate them.