PlantFiles: Cardoon, Artichoke Thistle
Cynara cardunculus

Love the look of this plant--saw it full-grown at a professionally landscaped home--very sculptural, with beautiful gray-green leaves and brilliant, eye-catching blooms. Planted two plants (app 10 inches tall) late in the summer, but neither survived the winter cold. Didn't rot, as we were having a drought and they were in a raised bed, but did not survive 21 degrees Farenheit in a south facing location in zone 7. Maybe too young? Hard to say...

I was first introduced to Cardoon in Texas A&M University's Holistic Garden. Its size and unusual appearance literally "stopped me in my tracks"!! I asked, "What is THAT????" I've wanted one for myself for about two years and, now, have two. I'm so excited and can't wait to get them in the ground. Wish me luck!!!

I decided to grow cardoon from seed, as I was intrigued by its long history and by the idea that it tastes "artichokey". We did not have any blooms this year, but our 3 plants are happily growing in a large container. It's becoming cold here in the northeast and I was wondering if it's okay to bring it indoors for winter, has anyone tried?

this is a tough plant but i started out with 2. i tried to move one and was unable to get all of the root. it died and it did not come back from the remaining root. i have the remaining plant in full texas sun all day on the west side. it lives in hard packed clay soil without any supplemental water. it does get huge. i have never had even one volunteer seedling. several years ago it was attacked by leaf footed bugs. i thought it had died but next spring it was back. it does have spiny leaves. this plant provides winter interest by leaving the plant stalk and dried flower heads.

I grew this plant a few years ago for food, but found the stalks too stringy for my taste. The upside is that the blooms were a trip...covered with every conceivable bird and bug, and stunning to boot. The next year, I experienced the invasive side as baby cardoons came up everywhere in my vegetable garden (easy to identify and pull). I skipped a year and have decided to cautiously allow one to grow in the back of my bed for the entertainment value, and to feed my beloved chickadees and finches. One other person in town has been growing them for several years and they don't seem to have posed an invasiveness problem here in ecologically delicate Provincetown MA. I'll keep you posted, but for the meantime any bird&bug lover who enjoys a spectacular thistle may enjoy growing a cardoon or two....

I like this plant because it is dramatic. Love the coloring. Its grayish (sp?) leaves against other plants is very visually pleasing, to me, anyway. Since I have only had it for about a year, can't say anything about its invasiveness. so far no problem. Planted inground, full sun. As of this writing, plant is in bloom, it is all I can do not to cut the flower and bring it inside the house. Quite stunning!

Currently growing (for edible purposes).... not yet harvest so no positive or negative yet. Stems are used for eating after being "blanched" in cardboard. A favorite in Italy and France and with Italian Americans.
So far I have found seedling fairly prone to rotting in wet spring soil.
Seedling id: fleshy rounded (before true leaves) dark green with white veining at leaf veins.

A very hardy plant but not hard to eliminate in my opinion. The best way to get rid of unwanted plants in by digging up as much of the root as possible. They don't like to be disturbed and have always died when I've done it.

DO NOT let this plant go to seed b/c the seed are carried by animals, especially birds and mice making nests and they carry on the wind. If seeds gets away, cardoon will sprout anywhere it lands.

Japanese beetles target this plant. Other then other beetles, I haven't observed other pests.

Last year, I planted five cardoons from seed in April in my north Michigan (Zone 5) garden. At the end of the season I dug out and destroyed all of them, or so I thought, since I did not believe that they would survive our harsh winters. To my surprise, one came back from what must have been left of the the roots and grew into a glorious plant over the last few months. It is now blooming with about a dozen flowerheads, and reaching about 6ft tall and 5 feet wide. Has anyone else had a cardoon survive a zone 5 winter?

We bought a house that came with a large (20' x 40') garden last summer... we weren't sure what would grow this year, so I took a "wait and see" approach.... well, we have/had cardoon and my FIL actually knew what it was, etc. so I had planned to blanche some of it, and harvest it. It grew to about 6 ft tall, and a huge rainstorm flattened just about all of it. Part of it fell over into the "lawn" portion of our yard, and proceeded to sprout in the grass, so we pushed it all back into the garden. Because it is so attractive to bees, I had to wait until this past weekend's 70 degree/cloudy weather to pull it out. New growth had started to grow from the now flattened, but not dead stalks. It's quite hardy and that's not a good thing. 5 hours and 14 plastic garbage bags later, it is mostly gone... we chose plastic over paper leaf bags to avoid spreading it to anyone else in our town. We have since found more cardoon growing in all parts of our garden, lawn, and other parts of the yard. If you choose to grow cardoon, make sure you tend to it daily, and you want it. We were unlucky that we didn't know what was what and we had never gardened before. Our variety was quite spiny and even wearing leather gloves, my forearms were "stuck" over and over again and appear to have a rash.

I remember eating this vegetable in Spain where it is quite popular.
We used it in place of artichokes when we wanted the flavor of the artichoke but did not want to spend as much money.
It is great for flavoring rice dishes and stews. It is also great by itself, but stronger tasting than the artichoke.

I'm happy to report that cardoon will grow in the Waimea (Kamuela) area of the Big Island in Hawaii. It was planted as an experiment for a cooking demonstration that would be presented by Mario Batali (Molto Mario) during a food seminar in Hawaii in March 03....the plants were planted months in advance and did great. The presentation went quite well and we all got to taste cardoon with handmade pasta made with semolina, which we helped prepare.

Since then the Hirabara Farm (small boutique farm) where the demonstration/cooking class took place, has been continuing to grow it. The farm is located at about the 3,000 foot elevation

Cynara cardunculus grows since ages in the vegetable gardens around castles even in Belgium although the plant grows more likely in France, Italy etc. If used as vegetable the leaves must be winded together and covered with black plastic at the end of august, early september to create a hothouse effect. This makes the leaves and stems to loose their greygreen colour and it softens the stems.
Cynara cardunculus is a delicate vegetable although it requires a long boiling time over 2 hours or 50 minutes in a pressure cooker. Note that only the stems (very well cleaned) are eaten and are cut in pieces of 6 cm. A good seed is "Plein Blanc", inerme from Clause, France, means Fully white, unarmed (not prickly).

I grew cardoon several years ago in an Atlanta suburb, zone 7b, from a packet of seeds. I had about a half dozen plants survive the ravages of rampaging leafhoppers that devoured most of my seedlings, and one cardoon grew to about 8 feet tall, with gorgeous purple-blue thistles. This plant was in the front yard, near the street, and everyone commented on it.

The others only grew to about 3 feet, and none of them survived a very cold winter at almost a 1,000 feet high--Atlanta can be a very cold place indeed, in the winter, despite being in the South, and I was sad that they didn't come back, as this was a very attractive plant. Obviously it is not invasive in that climate. I tried eating some of the new leaves, as the Romans ate it, but they were very bitter.

I have been looking a this plant in a bed by Kinkos for several years. However, the composite flower is an azure blue rather than pinkish-purple. Does anyone know what this blue one is? After all these years of admiring it, they were digging up the bed & discarding everything, so I got one & planted it. I hope it lives in my yard.

It readily escapes from captivity. With few natural enemies in North America it can be an expensive invader of parks and other natural areas, and should not be used near or upwind of them.

Some taxonomists believe Cardoon cardunculus and C. scolymus are synonyms.

An attractive architectural plant which grows best in poor soil.Is tolerant of salty breezes(sea).
Often to be found by roadsides where it has selfseeded,probably by seed carried by birds.

Very hardy in my zone 7 yard. Lovely purple flowers that create an enviroment all of their own with bumble bees, butterflies, ants and spiders lying in wait for an unsuspecting victim. Careful though, it has tiny little spikes that lodge themselves into skin and are hard to detect by eye but easy to detect by pain.

A tender perennial that can grow 6 to 8 feet high. The gray-green leaves overlap at the base and can get up to 20 inches long with ovate to linear-lance shaped segments and deep basal lopes. The wide, plump, edible stems form loose stalks or heads like celery. Cardoons keep their vase shape until late in the season, when a branching ,gray-wooly central stem shoots up. Several buds, which resemble small artichokes, grow atop this stem. These grow into purple thistle like flowers which are 1 1/2- 3 inches across.