Roadside Rebel
As stubborn as it is handsome, wild tansy refuses to be hemmed in. Maine's gardeners forgive the rude manners and pledge eternal devotion.
Maine's highways and byways come alive in late summer with wildflowers in tawny golds, mellow pinks, and rich purples. Along Route 26 near Bethel, for example, locals and visitors alike marvel at broad swaths of petite, bright-yellow flowers that light up the roadside for miles. The plant they can't help but ogle is tansy, an herb with a colorful past. Like an official greeter hired to welcome the last crush of summer tourists, it stands tall (about three and a half feet) and spreads its strong arms wide (up to eighteen inches across).Eye-catching, button-shaped blossoms appear to float above lush, fern-like foliage. Passersby who pause for closer inspection discover that tansy's most distinguishing characteristic isn't its good looks. A strong scent redolent of camphor, with top notes of rosemary, is what sets this perennial apart.
Like daylilies, purple loosestrife, and other roadside denizens now firmly rooted in Maine, common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is from away. Three and a half centuries ago, colonists brought the plant with them from England, where it had long been used for treating everything from intestinal worms to gout. Tansy came in handy for preserving meat as well as seasoning it (in lieu of expensive pepper). Coffins lined with it remained vermin-free, and meetinghouse floors strewn with it harbored fewer flies and fleas. More dubiously, maidens relied on tansy to fight freckles, while fretful mothers tucked a tansy sprig inside their little ones' boots to ward off colds and fevers. So useful was tansy that in the mid-1600s Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts declared it essential to every colonist's herb garden.
Today, Maine's landowners may have a bone to pick with Governor Winthrop. Tansy long ago escaped the confinement of settlers' dooryard gardens and invaded pastures and other places where soil has been disturbed. Once established, it is almost impossible to eradicate. Tansy's vigorous root system creeps unrelentingly; even worse are the plant's seeds, which disperse downstream in gullies and ditches, helped along by heavy rains. "Tansy may be bad in one spot but not in another, " says Maine state horticulturist Ann Gibbs. "You grow it at your own risk." So far, Maine gardeners who prize this versatile plant are lucky: in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Washington tansy has been declared a noxious weed, and cultivating it is illegal.
As an herbal remedy, tansy has certainly lost its luster. "It's highly toxic," cautions Deb Soule, a nationally respected herbalist, teacher, and owner of Avena Botanicals, an herbal apothecary in West Rockport. "It's definitely not safe for pregnant or nursing women." Oil extracted from tansy's flowers and foliage contains thujone, a natural chemical compound that can cause convulsions (unbeknownst to American bourbon king Jack Daniels, who reportedly enjoyed his favorite beverage flavored with a little crushed tansy leaf). Contact with tansy foliage can cause dermatitis in people with sensitive skin.
For many Maine gardeners, none of this matters a whit. In the herb garden, tansy remains invaluable in the fight against pests. It repels mosquitoes (an old mosquito dope recipe once popular among hunters and fishermen called for oil of tansy, fleabane, and pennyroyal mixed together and diluted with alcohol), discourages ants from entering the house (plant it near the kitchen door, as Maine's earliest settlers did), and deters moths. Savvy fruit growers cultivate tansy as their ancestors did, near raspberries, blackberries, grapes, and peaches to thwart bugs they don't want (Japanese beetles and flies, for instance) and attract ones they do (ladybugs and lacewings).
Most of all, gardeners love tansy for its pert, colorful blossoms that look smashing when nestled among zinnias, black-eyed Susans, valerian, helenium, and artemisia. Drought-tolerant and cold-hardy (to thirty degrees below zero), this tough member of the aster family asks for little more than full sun and well-drained soil. Moreover, deer give it a pass. Experienced gardeners grow tansy where they can whack it back with a lawnmower whenever it gets the urge to roam.
As a cut flower, tansy has few peers — it's often the last flower in the vase to wilt or fade. (Be forewarned: The camphoraceous scent lingers and may overwhelm other floral aromas.) When dried, it endures for years in wreaths and centerpieces. Herbalists and floral designers advise harvesting late in the day, after all dew has dried. Stems should be gathered and foliage removed when flowering has reached its peak (but before blossoms darken), then bound in loose bundles and hung to dry for about three weeks. When dried, tansy blossoms retain their distinctive fragrance for months.
When gathering tansy from the wild, it's wise to avoid confusing it with tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), far more toxic than common tansy and one of the plant world's true thugs (unfortunately, sightings have been reported in Hancock and Cumberland counties). Lethal to livestock as well as to humans, tansy ragwort is shorter than common tansy (twenty-four to thirty-six inches in height) and sports thin rays around diminutive, daisy-like heads. Tansy ragwort and common tansy both flower in late summer and early autumn.
A mixed reputation has made Tanacetum vulgare elusive in many Maine nurseries, which is too bad: outstanding cultivars such as 'Isla Gold', with honey-hued leaves and roots that spread more slowly than the norm, and 'Crispum', with dense, ferny foliage ideal for pruning into desired shapes, deserve a place in today's sophisticated perennial borders. At Longfellow's Greenhouses, in Manchester, tansy is usually available during the gardening season, but the staff must procure plants from wholesalers offsite. Anna Brown in the store's nursery department says that finding tansy seed isn't as easy as it once was. "We offer common tansy and sometimes we stock 'Crispum', but we don't grow them ourselves," she says.
Kelly Comer, flower product manager at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Albion and Winslow, explains why gardeners may be having trouble finding tansy seed: "We can't ship it to states where it's banned, so it's easier to leave it out of the catalog." She sums up the ambivalence many Mainers feel toward Tanacetum vulgare: "Personally, I think it's a weed, but you have to admit it's an attractive one."
Like daylilies, purple loosestrife, and other roadside denizens now firmly rooted in Maine, common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is from away. Three and a half centuries ago, colonists brought the plant with them from England, where it had long been used for treating everything from intestinal worms to gout. Tansy came in handy for preserving meat as well as seasoning it (in lieu of expensive pepper). Coffins lined with it remained vermin-free, and meetinghouse floors strewn with it harbored fewer flies and fleas. More dubiously, maidens relied on tansy to fight freckles, while fretful mothers tucked a tansy sprig inside their little ones' boots to ward off colds and fevers. So useful was tansy that in the mid-1600s Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts declared it essential to every colonist's herb garden.
Today, Maine's landowners may have a bone to pick with Governor Winthrop. Tansy long ago escaped the confinement of settlers' dooryard gardens and invaded pastures and other places where soil has been disturbed. Once established, it is almost impossible to eradicate. Tansy's vigorous root system creeps unrelentingly; even worse are the plant's seeds, which disperse downstream in gullies and ditches, helped along by heavy rains. "Tansy may be bad in one spot but not in another, " says Maine state horticulturist Ann Gibbs. "You grow it at your own risk." So far, Maine gardeners who prize this versatile plant are lucky: in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Washington tansy has been declared a noxious weed, and cultivating it is illegal.
As an herbal remedy, tansy has certainly lost its luster. "It's highly toxic," cautions Deb Soule, a nationally respected herbalist, teacher, and owner of Avena Botanicals, an herbal apothecary in West Rockport. "It's definitely not safe for pregnant or nursing women." Oil extracted from tansy's flowers and foliage contains thujone, a natural chemical compound that can cause convulsions (unbeknownst to American bourbon king Jack Daniels, who reportedly enjoyed his favorite beverage flavored with a little crushed tansy leaf). Contact with tansy foliage can cause dermatitis in people with sensitive skin.
For many Maine gardeners, none of this matters a whit. In the herb garden, tansy remains invaluable in the fight against pests. It repels mosquitoes (an old mosquito dope recipe once popular among hunters and fishermen called for oil of tansy, fleabane, and pennyroyal mixed together and diluted with alcohol), discourages ants from entering the house (plant it near the kitchen door, as Maine's earliest settlers did), and deters moths. Savvy fruit growers cultivate tansy as their ancestors did, near raspberries, blackberries, grapes, and peaches to thwart bugs they don't want (Japanese beetles and flies, for instance) and attract ones they do (ladybugs and lacewings).
Most of all, gardeners love tansy for its pert, colorful blossoms that look smashing when nestled among zinnias, black-eyed Susans, valerian, helenium, and artemisia. Drought-tolerant and cold-hardy (to thirty degrees below zero), this tough member of the aster family asks for little more than full sun and well-drained soil. Moreover, deer give it a pass. Experienced gardeners grow tansy where they can whack it back with a lawnmower whenever it gets the urge to roam.
As a cut flower, tansy has few peers — it's often the last flower in the vase to wilt or fade. (Be forewarned: The camphoraceous scent lingers and may overwhelm other floral aromas.) When dried, it endures for years in wreaths and centerpieces. Herbalists and floral designers advise harvesting late in the day, after all dew has dried. Stems should be gathered and foliage removed when flowering has reached its peak (but before blossoms darken), then bound in loose bundles and hung to dry for about three weeks. When dried, tansy blossoms retain their distinctive fragrance for months.
When gathering tansy from the wild, it's wise to avoid confusing it with tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), far more toxic than common tansy and one of the plant world's true thugs (unfortunately, sightings have been reported in Hancock and Cumberland counties). Lethal to livestock as well as to humans, tansy ragwort is shorter than common tansy (twenty-four to thirty-six inches in height) and sports thin rays around diminutive, daisy-like heads. Tansy ragwort and common tansy both flower in late summer and early autumn.
A mixed reputation has made Tanacetum vulgare elusive in many Maine nurseries, which is too bad: outstanding cultivars such as 'Isla Gold', with honey-hued leaves and roots that spread more slowly than the norm, and 'Crispum', with dense, ferny foliage ideal for pruning into desired shapes, deserve a place in today's sophisticated perennial borders. At Longfellow's Greenhouses, in Manchester, tansy is usually available during the gardening season, but the staff must procure plants from wholesalers offsite. Anna Brown in the store's nursery department says that finding tansy seed isn't as easy as it once was. "We offer common tansy and sometimes we stock 'Crispum', but we don't grow them ourselves," she says.
Kelly Comer, flower product manager at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Albion and Winslow, explains why gardeners may be having trouble finding tansy seed: "We can't ship it to states where it's banned, so it's easier to leave it out of the catalog." She sums up the ambivalence many Mainers feel toward Tanacetum vulgare: "Personally, I think it's a weed, but you have to admit it's an attractive one."
- By: Rebecca Sawyer-Fay
- Photography by: Peggy McKenna
