Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla – location, planting and care

Lady’s mantle can be used as a ornamental foliage perennial in any open space with a wild perennial character, on the edge of woods and in the rock garden – below under species and varieties you will get to know the many lady’s mantles that feel comfortable in our climate.

These include very dainty lady’s mantles, medium-tall, herbaceous perennials and fairly tall perennials that develop a shrub-like character. There are alchemillas, which are more used to the sun and warmth, and lady’s mantles, which still thrive quite far north. Most are so undemanding anyway that they enjoy a sunny location, but can also cope with a sunny location. A lady’s mantle can therefore enrich quite a few garden areas. It is available in the right height for every location and can also cope with any normal garden soil.

The ornamental leaf perennial develops decorative foliage in every variant, sometimes smaller and sometimes larger rosettes of five to nine lance-shaped partial leaves that can fold up into a kind of funnel to collect water. When the lady’s mantle gets too wet, it emits water. It has so-called hydathodes, water glands, on the teeth of its leaf edges.

In both cases, insects benefit from the small drinking trough (insects can also be thirsty in high humidity if all the water is in the air as vapour). Alchemilla not only refreshes insects, but also attracts them to the flowers and pollination work with its scent.

Alchemilla not only has beautiful watering and draining leaves and other insect attractions to offer, but also spoils us with many small yellow flowers. That over a long period of time, between May and September. Depending on the variety in other color nuances, from almost light green to pale yellow to bright golden yellow.

Sowing or planting

Both are also easy to get, since “woman’s herb” has made a name for itself in naturopathy. You can get untreated seeds from organic seed dealers, or Alchemilla in several varieties as young plants from any well-stocked perennial nursery.

The seeds can be sown directly into the bed in spring, as soon as serious frosts are no longer to be feared. The light germs are scattered on the surface and only raked in a little so that they don’t fly away with the next breeze.

Seeds collected by fellow gardeners must be exposed to cold treatment in the refrigerator before sowing, Alchemillas are frost germs.

Pick up lady’s mantle in the great outdoors

Lady’s mantle is so common in the great outdoors that you can and may help yourself directly there. If you want to take advantage of the beneficial effects of lady’s mantle on all possible circuits of the human body, maybe not a bad idea. Lady’s mantle, which grows in your region, has adapted to this. When you’re not picking it up off the highway, in an environment of pure nature, you can get organic lady’s mantle. Pretty sure the common lady’s mantle if you’re traveling in Germany, in the genetic variant that was developed in your home country.

Lady’s mantles vary greatly depending on location. They are more or less hairy, with semi-circular rounded or triangularly tapering leaves. If these changes in genetics also affected the ingredients, you would have the cocktail designed specifically for where you live.

From looking for lady’s mantles, you will find that these plants have good taste and a sense of romance. Lady’s mantle prefers to grow in idyllic spots that are overgrown with all kinds of plants. In other words, “where nature is still in order”, where Alchemilla finds good, humus-rich soil that can absorb water well, but does not turn into swamp every time it rains.

If you want to pick a few more herbs right away: lady’s mantle can often be found in the company of daisies and yarrows. In addition, brook avens almost always grows nearby. The Alchemilla should also like to settle frequently on the usually rich soil of a sparse larch forest.

Easy-care Alchemilla

In the garden, too, the Alchemillas always want to be supplied with water evenly and well after they have come up/planted, without having to bathe in waterlogging.

You usually don’t need more, nor fertilizer, if the soil is not completely nutrient-free, Alchemilla will grow.

On the contrary, they can use lady’s mantles to thin overfertilized areas. They extract the excess nitrogen from the soil and use it.

Not only over-fertilized areas benefit from a lady’s mantle. The Alchemilla can also save you weeding if you use it as a ground cover on areas with rich overgrowth. If the location suits it, the lady’s mantle forms a dense growth that no other weed can thrive.

Lady’s mantle is not only a good companion plant for solitary perennials such as bergenia, ferns, hostas, grasses, daylilies and woolly Ziest, but also for roses that love the same humus-rich soil in a sunny to partially shaded location as Alchemilla.

To cut

You don’t have to trim a lady’s mantle, but most of the time it’s a good idea.

Because in most bed communities other young plants should also get a chance, so the lady’s mantle should not be able to seed unchecked. You should therefore cut the lady’s mantle down to the ground after the first flowering.

This also has the advantage that the plant will sprout fresh leaves again, look really nice and tidy again and usually also develop a few new flowers.

propagation

At locations that suit her, Alchemilla will take care of itself, rather too much than too little.

Some species form roots that creep horizontally in the ground, spreading to the sides and occasionally sending a small plant upwards. You can move these offshoots to other places in the garden.

hibernate

Many Alchemilla species are uncritically winter-hardy here, the alpine species often hibernate in full foliage and bloom in mild winters, the Caucasian species can sprout new leaves as early as January.

Other species are native a little further south and will happily accept a thick layer of compost for winter protection; who needs what should be asked at the time of purchase.

Native miracle plant

Nothing against jiaogulan , tea tree and moringa, just the more well-known examples of foreign miracle plants that are constantly reaching our market – it is certainly to be welcomed if every beneficial effect of exotic wellness plants can also be tested in this country.

But this test usually fails with the stressed people who need the balancing effects of miracle plants the most. They simply have no time to deal with the culture conditions of foreign guests or actually no time to take care of any plants.

With the local lady’s mantle, it is easier for these people to enjoy healthy and beneficial tea. Lady’s mantle was already administered as a remedy in ancient times, for all the regulation of the female cycle and hormone balance, but also for all sorts of other balancing purposes. Lady’s mantle contains tannin, blood-purifying tannin, and bitter substances that are good for digestion. Its phytosterols are said to lower cholesterol, only the “bad LDL cholesterol”, its saponins are said to have a diuretic effect and promote the absorption of other secondary plant substances, other ingredients are said to strengthen the heart and promote wound healing.

Lady’s mantle is taken as a tea from the (dried) herb, the leaves with the stems, but of course only after consultation with a (naturopathic) doctor.

species and varieties

Lady’s Mantle has around 70 slang names, which suggests it’s fairly widespread. In fact, there is alchemist’s herb or cloak of God, teardrops or silver herb in Europe, Asia and Africa; it forms a whole genus of plants in the rose family. A total of an impressive 1,000 species, “only” 300 of which are native to Europe, and a large number of them are cultivated, for example:

• Alpine lady’s mantle (Alchemilla alpina): Also alpine silver mantle, native cushion-forming perennial, grows to about 15 cm high, yellow-green flowers from June to August, for sunny to partially shaded locations in the rock garden
• Common lady’s mantle (Alchemilla xantochlora or vulgaris): The original perennial with growth heights of up to 50 cm, self-seeding
• Conjoined lady’s mantle (Alchemilla conjucta): Expressive lady’s mantle with dark leaves and almost light yellow flowers
• Goldschlag lady’s mantle (Alchemilla sericata ‘Gold Strike’): Height around 35 cm, bright yellow-green flowers June to August, cut back before seed ripening or after flowering
• Large-leaved Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis): Grows up to 50 cm tall, eager self-seeder that needs some control
• Caucasian lady’s mantle (Alchemilla caucasica): Small lady’s mantle that grows cushion-like, forms decorative mats on the edge of the wood and requires little maintenance
• Kerner’s lady’s mantle (Alchemilla kerneri): Is on the red list in Bavaria, planting in the garden is certainly desirable, but may not be taken from nature
• Shimmering lady’s mantle (Alchemilla splendens): Pretty little rock garden perennial with few demands
• Slashed lady’s mantle (Alchemilla fissa): Funny “fringes” on the leaves, but needs a lot of warmth
• Dwarf Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla ellenbeckii): Tiny creeping perennial that displays its yellow flowers from May to July in the rock garden, but some winter protection is advisable
• Dwarf Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla erythropoda): Perennial that grows cushion-like, about 25 cm high and has yellow-green flowers in June and July
• Dainty lady’s mantle (Alchemilla epipsila): Around 30 cm high, yellow-green flowers May to July, cut back before seeds ripen if necessary to avoid self-sowing, otherwise cut back faded inflorescences
• Grey-green lady’s mantle (Alchemilla glaucescens): Yellow flowering lady’s mantle with thick hair all around
• Weak silky lady’s mantle (Alchemilla subsericea): Abundantly flowering lady’s mantle, which adorns rock gardens with a growth height of around 25 cm, but needs winter protection

Conclusion Lady
‘s mantle in the garden is definitely an asset. Even if the plan of medieval alchemists to transform the “sundew” from the leaves into the philosopher’s stone (which, by the way, was also only supposed to make gold from cheap metal) is unlikely to succeed; even if you do not intend to take lady’s mantle as an herbal tea. Alchemilla makes itself useful enough in the garden. Your branches will also decorate your living space for a long time, while it dries decoratively in the vase.