Angelica
Angelica Archangelica Holy Ghost
 
Medicinal plant with striking blooms.Large, lobed leaves and thick, hollow stems. Leaves and stalks have sweet flavor. Because Angelica is a biennial, flowering begins early spring of the second year. Large, numerous blooms. Seeds are cold-stored to ensure viability. Blooms make a lovely addition to fresh or dried bouquets.• Attracts and feeds beneficial insects and pollinators, including bees, parasitic wasps, lady beetles, minute pirate bugs, syrphid flies, and tachinid flies.
 
Commonly called garden angelica, sweet celery, Norwegian or American Angelica is a bold, somewhat coarse, biennial which is often grown in the garden for both ornamental and culinary purposes. By its second year, a hollow-but-stout stem rises to 6 feet tall bearing large, ornamentally-attractive, globular greenish-white flower umbels up to 6 inches across. The flowers bloom in early summer, followed by seed that ripens in late summer. After the seed ripens the Angelica plants will die.
 
Details:
Plant life cycle: Biennial in Zones 4-9.
Site:Partial sun/partial shade
Height:72-96"
Days to maturity:365
Sow: Surface sow and press seeds in to soil
Plant spacing:12-24'
Approx seeds per packet: 20
 
How to Grow:
DAYS TO GERMINATION:30 days.SOWING:Transplant: Refrigerate the seeds until sowing. It is preferable to plant in the fall, but early spring plantings will also be successful. Tamp the seeds into the soil mix or just barely cover with soil and moisten. Seed requires light to germinate, along with alternating temperatures of warm and cold. Place the flats or trays outside where they will experience the needed temperature fluctuations. After 21 days, flats should be brought into warmer temperatures to germinate. Transplant seedlings outside in the spring when they are 3-4" tall, spacing seedlings 12-24" apart in rows that are 36" apart. Direct seed: Refrigerate the seeds until sowing. Sow in the fall or spring, 1/4- 3/8" deep, 10 seeds per foot in well-prepared seedbeds. Space plants 12-24" apart in each direction.
 
LIGHT PREFERENCE:Sun/Part Shade. Angelica prefers part shade, but will grow fine in full sun.
SOIL REQUIREMENTS:Angelica requires a fairly rich, light, well-drained, but moist loam.

Medicinal use:
Leaves, stems, roots and seeds all have a similar taste to licorice and have been cultivated for many years for both culinary and medicinal purposes. Plants also have a long folk history in Europe and Asia for medicinal uses.
- In 17th-century England, angelica water became the official cure for the Black Death.
 
- The roots of the herb are fleshy and have been used to cure everything from indigestion and flatulence to fatigue and heartburn.
 
- Extracts from the plant were used to treat chronic bronchitis and bladder infections.The leaves were also used to treat inflammation and ear drops were made from the herb to treat ear infections.
 
- Burning the dried roots of angelica was part of many rituals as a way to open portals to other dimensions.
 
 
Culinary uses include:
Leaves may be added to mixed salads, stalks and young shoots may be used like celery (hence the often used name of wild celery) or crystallized in sugar for cake decorations or snacks, leaves, seeds and roots may be used for making tea, seed is commercially used for flavoring liqueur.
 
- In 18 century Denmark was developing a candy made from the stems of angelica. The confection became popular in England after the end of the plague.
-  In France, angelica roots are the main flavor of Chartreuse, a popular liqueur.
-  Not to be outdone, Massachusetts has its own herbal liqueur called Angelica made from the roots of the herb
-  Angelica is a key flavoring ingredient in gin distillation.
 
 
Harvest :
All parts of the plant are edible. The leaves should be harvested carefully the first year so as not to damage the main stem. The root is harvested in the fall of the first year or in the spring of the second year
 
Note:Once established, Angelica can also be propagated by root division.