Growing guide
How to grow borage
Borage is an easily-grown herb used in informal areas such as cottage gardens, wildlife areas and vegetable patches. The usually sky blue flowers are edible and can garnish summer drinks and salads. Borage is an annual so will need to be raised from seeds or young plants each year. However, there's also one perennial to look out for, which is also edible.
Quick facts
- Easy to grow, in most garden soils
- The herb borage is an annual
- Edible flowers are produced in summer
- Best on a sunny site
- Attractive to pollinating insects
- Self-seeds readily or collect seed and sow in spring
All you need to know
What is borage?
Borage is best known as a herb, grown for it's delicate blue flowers. These are plucked from the plant and sprinkled into summer drinks, such as fruit punch, where they add a refreshing cucumber-like fragrance.
This plant is an annual, so raise plants each year, or allow it to grow from the seeds that the plants will drop in the ground each year. It is easy to grow.
There are a few other, not-widely-grown borage relatives that we explain in the section on choosing below.
Choosing borage for you garden
Here are some things to consider when choosing borage for your garden.
Colour
Commonly seen borage (Borago officionalis) is a blue-flowered annua and is usually raised from seed, although yound plants are available in spring and early summer. Additionally, Borago officionalis 'Alba' offers pure white blooms and B. officionalis 'Bill Archer' has cream
Variegated means having leaves or other plant parts with streaks, blotches or patches of different colours. Typically, these would be a combination of two colours, such as green and gold or green and white.
Eventual size
It's worth noting the size so that you can give new plants enough room to grow and bloom in your garden.
- Borage (Borago officinalis) reaches 50-70cm (20-28in) tall, and makes a handsome, erect plant. They are shorter if the soil is dry or poor - and
A seedling is a young plant grown from seed.
- Hardy perennial B. pygmaea is a hardy
Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.
Buying borage
You can buy borage (Borago officinalis) as young plants in 9cm (3½in) pots or as packets of seed for sowing in spring. Look for B. pygmaea growing in containers in the
Perennials are any plant living for at least three years. The term is also commonly used for herbaceous perennials which grow for many years (To compare: annual = one year, biennial = two years).
Borages are widely available in garden centres and nurseries, and from online suppliers, with a larger choice available by mail order.
Buying: garden centre plants
Buying: mail order plants
Where to plant
Borage likes to grow in full sun in the ground, but will tolerate light shade. They will grow on any soil that is not waterlogged and like moist soil in summer to produce the biggest, best plants.
You can grow boarage easily in containers too. They are quite large plants, so use a pot at least 30cm (1ft) wide to ensure it's big enough to support it's size and weight.
When to plant
Plant young plants and sow seed of borage directly in the ground in spring (April/May).
It's best to plant Borago pygmaea in spring, although you can planted at any time as long as the soil is not frozen or waterlogged.
How to plant
In the groundYoung borage plants are easy to plant in the garden, as you simply need to dig a hole large enough to take the roots, firm back the surround soil and water. The soil doesn't have to be improved with organic matter but, if you do, it will certainly help your plants to grow bigger. Plants should be spaced about 50cm (20in) apart.
To sow the seeds in spring, see Propagation below.
In containers
Pot up borage using a multi-purpose peat-free compost. You can also sow seed directly into the surface of the compost in spring, see Propagation below. You'll only have room for one borage plant per 30cm (1ft) pot.
Perennials: planting
Watering
In the groundGenerally borages in the ground will not need watering, but they do prefer the soil to be moist, and watering in dry spells will encourage the plants to grow to a large size.
In containers
Borages in containers will need the compost to be kept moist, which can sometimes mean watering every day in summer.
Water wise
Watering
Feeding
-
Borages are not hungry plants and don’t usually need additional feeding
-
However, when growing in poor or sandy soil, you can give plants a boost by feeding in spring with a general fertiliser, such as Growmore or fish, blood and bone. Always follow the instructions on the packet
Borages growing in containers should be fed annually in spring, as the nutrients in the compost soon run out (usually after about six weeks).
Container maintenance
Fertilisers
Caring for old plants
Dig or pull up plants after flowering, or when they start to look a bit tatty. You can collect seed to sow the following spring in pots or scatter on open ground.
Spring sown/planted borage will often being to look the worst for wear by August, so it's worth knowing they don't last all summer long. If you put these up, it's common for seedlings to quickly grow and take over the space, giving you flower again from September. To ensure this happens, keep the seedlings watered to encourage good growth.
Top Tip
If don't want plants to self seed, pull up the borage after flowering. You will usually have ripe seed from the early flowers by the time the last flowers fade and left to its own devices borage will seed about.
Tidy away the remains of perennial B. pygmaea by cutting down in autumn. It will resprout in spring.
Growing from seed
Borages are very easily to grow from seed and you don't need a greenhouse to raise them. You can buy packets of seed or sow seed you have collected yourself.
See our sowing hardy annuals guides below, for full step-by-step details, but here are a few extra on seed collecting and growing tips:- Collect the ripe seeds are hard and black, and contained within the remains of the old flowers. These appear as the flowers fade from mid summer. Simply pick out or shake off the seed into a paper bag
- Store the ripe, dry seeds in a tin in a cool room, or in an air tight container in the fridge
- In April, sow them in seed trays and pots, then keep at a temperature of 15˚C (59˚F), and plant these out when large enough to handle.
- Alternatively, sow the seeds directly in the ground - this is often the easiest method.
Hardy annuals: sowing in spring
How to sow and prick out annuals
- The herb borage can get powdery mildew later in summer. This is usually when the plants have largely finished flowering, so simply pull up these plants and compost
Get involved
The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.