Russian Comfrey - Bocking 14 - Canada Only (due to government regulations)

Russian Comfrey is great for permaculture and has so many uses. Very effective ground cover to start with as it gets huge with time and the leaves are very large.


I'm 5'10" and this plant is about 3 years old. It really does get big.


The leaves closer to the ground get huge!


Useful medicinally and/or as a forage crop for your furry livestock. Excellent permaculture plant.

The beauty of it is that Bocking 14 Russian Comfrey is sterile. It will not spread by seed. However, you can dig up a plant after a year, separate it into many individual roots, plant those roots and each will grow a new plant. (That will become huge over time.)
The point being it won't take over your pasture/farm/fields over time all on it's own as common comfrey will. It's not "invasive".

We got our first couple of plants from an herb nursery about 15 years ago so we know it's Bocking 14. The original plants are huge in spite of dividing them to propagate more. The are very hardy for us and, they seem impervious to insets and other diseases. (Rabbits are another issue entirely.) We've had drought like conditions here for almost 2 months and it had zero negative impact on these. The roots go deep. The one's in partial shade seem to do better than the ones out in full sun although they do grow well in full sun.

They also have a very wide growing zone range from 3 to 9 although some reports say it will grow pretty much anywhere except maybe the arctic.


We sell ONLY the The "Bocking 14 strain" of Russian Comfrey.
This avoids any chance of cross contamination with rough (native) comfrey.


We can and will ship these anywhere in Canada via Canada Post.

Apologies to those in the US or other countries but government regulations that protect your existing plants prevent shipping roots directly to the US. (It can be done but it's an expensive process requiring government inspections, phytosanitary certificates, etc.)

● SMALL ROOT CUTTINGS are 2.00 each. - These are about 3 to 5 inches long and thinner than a pencil, these take the longest to sprout but are the best value. These are best planted in spring and summer.

● LARGE ROOT CUTTINGS are 5.00 each
These are 3-6 inches long and and thicker than a pencil. These will start faster than the small cuttings. These can be planted in spring summer and early fall.

● Crowns are $10 each. These are/were growing when dug up. we leave a bit of stem on them but remove the leaves as we had trouble with them going mouldy in the post.

● CONTACT INFO AND AVAILABILITY ● PHONE NUMBER: 416-745-2221 ● Email: magelord at zing-net.ca (change "at" to "@" and remove spaces. This stops bots harvesting my email address.)
NOTE: Phone calls are welcome. No text messages please. This is a landline. If you don't get an answer, leave a message and we'll get back to you even if it's long distance.




Colleen and Rick A.

Hey Rick, I'm interested , but I'd be pushing the zones by a few. I wonder if it would survive if I made a micro climate.
I'm about a week away from the first frost, so I'd probably have to wait until next Spring thaw. Do you think you'd have any come next May?

Intrigued. What are their light requirements? I wonder if it's viable to put them in pots by large windows for the winter.

Chris Sturgeon wrote:Hey Rick, I'm interested , but I'd be pushing the zones by a few. I wonder if it would survive if I made a micro climate.
I'm about a week away from the first frost, so I'd probably have to wait until next Spring thaw. Do you think you'd have any come next May?

Hi Chris:

They should work fine in your area. I don't think a micro climate is necessary but you might want to put a layer of straw over them for the first winter and then remove it as soon as the snow is clear. The smallest of the ones we have coming up in the ground survive winter here (we get down to minus 30C or lower) and come back up without mulching.

We've also shipped some to people in/near Whitehorse and they've been successful.

If you are interested shoot me an email from the original post with your postal code and I can let you know what shipping will cost.
(Canada post isn't exactly cheap like postage is in the US, especially to Yukon.)


Rick

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Intrigued. What are their light requirements? I wonder if it's viable to put them in pots by large windows for the winter.

Actually, they don't require a lot of light. We've had a basket of roots in dirt, in the back porch which isn't really heated that much, and they'll start growing and poking up leaves in the very early spring. Often while the ground is still very frozen.

There are windows out there but it's not all that "bright" and we don't have/use supplemental lighting out there for growing anything.

Pots inside the house near a large window would be  great. (south facing.)



If you shoot me an email I can give you a postage rate.



Rick