French Tarragon

I ordered a small potted French Tarragon from Gurneys in February but it did not arrive until last week. Except for fruit trees, this is my first experience with mail ordered live plants. I expected to receive a small plant in March, not realizing that the shipment of live plants in winter is not done. Even if protected from freezing in transit, the plant would likely not survive waiting on the front porch through the day of delivery. Be that as it may, the plant arrived in good health on Thursday and I re potted it Saturday morning.

There are several varieties of tarragon. I have seen "Texas" and "Russian" tarragon as well as French Tarragon. My neighbor grew "Texas" last year and I used some in a recipe one day, but did not think it had any flavor at all.

In her book The Garden Primer, Barbara Damrosch states that if you see tarragon seed, it's not the right kind of tarragon. Seed is readily available for Texas and Russian, but only the French has real culinary value, and it cannot be reliably grown from seed. Instead, French Tarragon is grown from divisions made in the spring, or cuttings taken in the fall.

Tarragon's binomial name is Artemisia dracunculus. The genus Artemesia contains a number of herbs associated with witchcraft and medicine as well as culinary use. Some, including Wormwood, Southernwood and Mugwort were believed to enhance psychic powers. Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) for example, used in the preparation of the liqueur Absinthe and the fortified wine Vermouth, is widely believed to have hallucinogenic properties.

Confusingly, the species name, dracunculus, is also a genus of lily, which includes the plant known as Dragon's Wort. Tarragon itself is sometimes called Dragon Herb.

Tarragon is a common element in French cooking, used to flavor poultry and eggs, stocks, sauces, vinegars, and olive oil. It is one of the components of "fines herbs" and a critical ingredient in Bearnaise sauce. For medicinal use, a tisane (boiling water poured over the leaves and allowed to steep for several minutes) is claimed to aid digestion and be a tonic for good health and well being.

Tarragon prefers a sheltered, but sunny location, a rich, but sandy, well drained, and slightly alkaline soil. It is a deciduous perennial and in northern zones it will die back to the soil level in the winter and send up new shoots in the spring. The roots should be protected with heavy mulch through the winter. It will lose it's vigor over time, so new plants should be started from cuttings or divisions, perhaps annually. My intention is to propagate new plants from cuttings in the fall and grow them as houseplants through the winter.