Not the most obvious name to choose for a plant with dazzlingly blue flowers! The “green” comes from the Latin description sempervirens - always green. It does die back briefly in winter but its green leaves are present for most of the year - winter colour for us and valuable shelter for our invertebrates. Pentaglottis refers to the 5 “tongue” like petals which form a tube. The name alkanet drives from the Arabic word for henna. It was brought to the uk from South west Europe around 1700, perhaps to use dye from its roots as a cheep henna substitute. I prefer to think they just loved the flower! It soon escaped cultivation and is now well naturalised.
Once regarded as a rather dull edible, now known to contain carcinogens.
The sound of buzzing is a feature of green alkanet - bees and other pollinators love it. The leaves are used by at least two species of leaf-mining flies and it is an important foodplant for the stunning Scarlet Tiger Moth. So make some room in your garden. It can try to take over, but follow advice from the RHS to control. Alkanet leaves, like comfrey make good ‘weed soup’ – pack them into a bucket of water and leave to rot down to produce a rich plant food fertiliser. Do take care when handling as the hairs can be irritating. RHS Green Alkanet control advice