Product Field NotesCompanion Plants
Victoria Rhubarb: The Classic Pie Plant for a Lavender Kitchen Garden
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Victoria rhubarb is the dependable old standby: a heavy-yielding plant with huge, crinkled leaves and thick, celery-like stalks that stay mostly green with a red blush toward the base. The flavor is classic tart rhubarb, the kind that makes a pie worth waiting for.
It is handsome enough for an ornamental bed, but it eats like a teenager, so it will not be sharing a bed with your lavender.
Victoria at a glance
| Trait | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Botanical name | Rheum × hybridum 'Victoria' |
| Stalks | Thick, mostly green, blushed red toward the base |
| Leaves | Deep green, 12 to 18 inches across (not edible) |
| Size | 2 to 3 feet tall, about 3 feet wide |
| Flower stalks | Creamy white plumes in late spring; remove them |
| Hardiness | USDA zones 3 to 9 |
| Light | Full sun |
| Uses | Pies, sauces, jams; freezes and cans well |
Where it fits with lavender
Rhubarb and lavender both like sun and both rot in soggy soil, but rhubarb wants rich, fertile ground packed with compost, the opposite of lavender's lean diet. The solution is a kitchen garden layout: lavender along the sunny, gritty edge or border, and rhubarb anchoring a corner of the vegetable patch a few steps away. Its giant leaves give a bold, tropical look that sets off lavender's fine silver mounds from across the path.
It also makes the lavender garden more useful. Rhubarb season comes in spring, well before lavender blooms, so the kitchen garden has something to harvest while the lavender is still waking up. Sketch the beds with the Companion Plant Planner.
Planting the bare root crown
- Prepare: dig in plenty of compost. This plant will stay put for years.
- Depth: set the crown just at or slightly below soil level.
- Drainage: pick a spot where water does not sit around the crown in winter. Crown rot is the main problem.
- Space: allow about 3 feet for each plant.
Harvest and care
Leave the plant alone the first year so it can build roots. In the second year, harvest lightly. From the third year on, harvest fully. Pull stalks with a gentle twist at the base instead of cutting. Cut off any flower stalks at the base as soon as they appear so the plant keeps putting energy into leaf stalks.
Rhubarb grows best where summers are cool and needs winter cold to produce well, which suits Michigan nicely. In fall, clear away dead leaves and top-dress with compost. In hot spells growth slows and stalks thin out; steady moisture helps.
In the kitchen
The stalks are for cooking: pies, sauces, crisps and jams, and they can be frozen or canned. The leaves are poisonous because of their high oxalic acid content and must never be eaten, so trim them off right after harvest.
Frequently asked questions
Why are my Victoria stalks green, not red?
That is normal for this variety. Its stalks stay mostly green with a red blush toward the base.
How long will it produce?
It is long-lived and keeps coming back for years with very little care.
Can I grow it in the lavender bed?
It needs much richer soil than lavender, so give it its own spot in the kitchen garden nearby.
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