Plant Guide

Other Names:  French Sorrel, Bloody Dock

Description:

This variety is an excellent ornamental-edible variety producing a rosette of leaves distinctively marked with deep red veins; flavor is similar to raspberry vinaigrette; add to any culinary or ornamental garden or container

Edible Qualities

Raspberry Dressing Sorrel is a perennial herb that is typically grown for its edible qualities, although it does have ornamental merits as well. The crinkled narrow dark green leaves with distinctive dark red veins are usually harvested from early summer to early fall. The leaves have a tangy taste and a crisp texture.

The leaves are most often used in the following ways:

• Fresh Eating
• Cooking

Features & Attributes

Raspberry Dressing Sorrel's attractive crinkled narrow leaves remain dark green in color with distinctive dark red veins throughout the season on a plant with a mounded habit of growth. It features subtle spikes of white star-shaped flowers rising above the foliage from early to mid summer. The dark red stems can be quite attractive.

This is an herbaceous perennial herb with a mounded form. Its medium texture blends into the garden, but can always be balanced by a couple of finer or coarser plants for an effective composition. This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. Deer don't particularly care for this plant and will usually leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Aside from its primary use as an edible, Raspberry Dressing Sorrel is sutiable for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Raspberry Dressing Sorrel will grow to be about 10 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 12 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 8 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 5 years. As an herbaceous perennial, this plant will usually die back to the crown each winter, and will regrow from the base each spring. Be careful not to disturb the crown in late winter when it may not be readily seen!

This plant is quite ornamental as well as edible, and is as much at home in a landscape or flower garden as it is in a designated herb garden. It does best in full sun to partial shade. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Raspberry Dressing Sorrel is a good choice for the edible garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers and foliage against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.