Photo Of The Week: Rhubarb in Bloom

June 4, 2024
Larry Hurley
Perennial Plants
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This photo was taken on May 15, 2024, in Middleton, Wisconsin about a block from my home. This beautiful flowering perennial with bold foliage is generally grown for food rather than beauty–it’s rhubarb.

We want lots of rhubarb stems to cook with, and not the flowers or leaves, so it’s recommended that the flowers be removed to prevent the plant from channeling energy made by the leaves into flowering and seed production instead of foliage production. Each leaf needs a stem, so more leaves, more stems, better harvest. Still, it’s pretty impressive in flower and might be fun to incorporate in a perennial border for it’s large leaves and occasional blooming.

Rhubarb is grown more commonly in the north, but can be grown in Maryland, and we used to carry potted rhubarb plants at Behnke’s. The primary issue is that it doesn’t like hot weather, so it’s not as robust in the Washington, DC area as it is in Wisconsin or New York. I planted one here in Wisconsin last year, the variety Crimson Red. It’s my first rhubarb so I’m learning as I go. I will be planting four more this year and I need to do a better job of adding compost to the bed and applying fertilizer, per the recommendations below, to better retain moisture and accommodate it’s nutritional preferences. By this time next year I should be making rhubarb chutney and rhubarb pie from my own plants, at least the one that’s already in the garden as they take a year or two to establish.

By the way. Behnke’s used to have a one-page handout on growing rhubarb and another on growing asparagus and we seem to have lost them. If you happen to have a copy, contact Stephanie, she would like to get a scan of them for her website.

Here’s an article on “bolting” in rhubarb, from Purdue University. Jessica Crawford use to write some wonderful articles for Behnke’s and here is one she wrote back in 2015 Forgotten Rhubarb Ready to Redeem its Reputation. Another good article on the care and of growing rhubarb is from Penn State.

Larry Hurley

Larry Hurley worked at Behnke Nurseries from 1984 until the business was composted in 2019, primarily with the perennial department in growing, buying and sales.

Before landing at Behnke’s, he worked as a technician in a tissue culture lab, a houseplant “expert” at a florist shop, and inventory controller at a wholesale nursery in Dallas. With this and that, ten years passed.

When his wife Carolyn accepted a position at Georgetown University, Larry was hired at Behnke’s for the perennial growing department and garden center at Behnke’s Largo location.

In 2021, Larry and Carolyn moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and further from traffic. After 37 years in a shaded yard in Maryland, he is happy to have a sunny lot where he can grow all sorts of new perennials, if only he can keep the rabbits at bay. He also enjoys cooking, traveling, and the snowblower.