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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-123
Russian Comfrey
Symphytum x uplandicum
Russian comfrey is grown for bulk rather than for eating - a fast-growing plant that produces heavy cuts of leaf several times a season, ideal chopped and dropped as mulch or compost material, with measured mineral content backing up its reputation as a nutrient accumulator. Its old reputation as a high-protein livestock forage does not hold up under research, though pigs and poultry can take modest amounts of the cut leaf; horses and cattle should never be fed it. The leaves and root also have a long medicinal history for wounds and broken bones, but the same alkaloids that make it useful there build up in the liver, so eating it is an occasional thing, not a staple. Once planted it is effectively permanent, since any leftover root fragment regrows and it cannot be weeded out.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–8
- Soil
- Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 3.9 ft
- Mature spread
- 24–36 in
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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