A gardening friend gave me three Angelica gigas, which is a monocarpic biennial or short-lived perennial plant from China, Japan and Korea. Monocarpic plants are those that flower, set seeds and then die. The first year, Angelica rocketed to 4 to 5 feet but did little else. In the second year, the umbel plum flowers emerged on multiple purplish stems. This plant steals all of the attention when it’s in flower. As expected it died that year after flowering, but two years later I found it coming up in several different areas of the garden. The escape plants seem to appear in the areas that need them the most. The Chinese have been using the dried root of this plant for thousand of years for medicinal purposes. In Korea the plant is used to treat anemia.

Angelica Gigas in the August border

Angelica Gigas makes a nice sihouette