Fern-Leaf Yarrow – Achillea filipendulina

Common Name: Yarrow, Fern-Leaf Yarrow

Botanical Name: Achillea filipendulina, a-KIL-ee-a fil-i-PEN-du-la

Decorative Life: Years as a dried flower. Even fresh flowers can last for 3 weeks.

Flower Color: White, Yellow

Availability: Summer

Harvest when flowers are fully open. Engle et al. (1994) noted that seed-propagated plugs can be stored at about 27F up to 6 weeks if given sufficient light and low temperature treatments prior to storage.

‘Coronation Gold’ did not tolerate one week storage at 35F whereas 39 or 45F was better suggesting possible chilling sensitivity. As dried flowers, just about any temperature will do as long as disease organisms are prevented from growing.

• Named after Achilles, who used the plant medicinally to heal his wounded soldiers.
• Yarrow stems were used by both the Druids and the Chinese to foretell the future.
• One yarrow leaf is said to speed decomposition of a wheelbarrow full of raw compost.
• Species used for cut flowers besides A. filipendulina (yellow) include A. millefolium (many colors), A. ptarmica (white), and A. ‘Coronation Gold’ (yellow). The Compositae or aster family is vast, with over 20,000 species, and is also one of the most developed families. It was named Compositae because the flowers are actually a “composite” of many individual flowers into one head. Hence, when children pull one “petal” off at a time, saying “she/he loves me, loves me not”, they are actually removing a complete flower, not just a petal.
• While many yarrow species tend to grow and spread rapidly in a garden setting to the point that they become weeds, this species will remain in relatively tight clumps.

Starman et al. (1995) rated this species (‘Cloth of Gold’) as being an average income producer. Using ‘Coronation Gold’, Redman et al. (2002) reported that storage wet at 35-45F gave equal results, (they did not try lower temperatures), they could be stored for only one week and STS and/or flower foods provided marginal benefits.