Dill and fennel are both hosts for the Black Swallowtail Butterfly. If you plant both dill and fennel in the garden, they will cross pollinate and your dill seed will not produce a good culinary (cooking) dill.
I planted some fennel plants just recently. The fennel I'd had before died last year because of severe heat and drought. Dill doesn't do well here. We have enough host plants if the Black Swallowtails come this year.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. E. B.White
Integrity can never be taken. It can only be given, and I wasn't going to give it up to these people. Gary Mowad
I was glad to know both pieces of information in your tip.
If I do grow both, I'll pull the volunteer dill-lings and plant fresh from a packet each year.
Just have dill. Planted it several years ago and it bolted. Now I am pulling dill out of my daylily bed and the lawn!
Any day you wake up on the sunny side of the grass is a good day.
"The moving hand writes and having writ moves on. Neither all thy piety nor all thy wit can lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam
Oh dear, I hope the wind doesn't blow your way! I had only one plant and the seed went everywhere
Any day you wake up on the sunny side of the grass is a good day.
"The moving hand writes and having writ moves on. Neither all thy piety nor all thy wit can lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam
Any day you wake up on the sunny side of the grass is a good day.
"The moving hand writes and having writ moves on. Neither all thy piety nor all thy wit can lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam
What is the separation distance to keep them from crossing with each other?
I am wondering if one was sown at one end of the yard, and the other at the other end--
would they still be crossed?
My guess the distance would probably depend on the pollinators.
The plants I grow are only separated by about 12-15 feet , because they are both in the herb bed.
I would guess if one was diligent enough to dead head the fennel before it blooms you should have good dill seed.
The caterpillars only eat the stems and leaves so it shouldn't effect them in any way to remove the flowers.
I've seen the caterpillars eat the fennel flowers, but they're perfectly happy with the rest of the plant. And once all the dill goes to seed, the fennel could be allowed to flower again if it wanted to. I don't grow dill here...it doesn't seem to like our heat. But there's a wild form of dill I've seen that grows here...even spotted caterpillars on it on rare occasion.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. E. B.White
Integrity can never be taken. It can only be given, and I wasn't going to give it up to these people. Gary Mowad