Perennial or annual?

I have a question about Parsley. This is the first year that we have grown Parsley. To be truthful, I did it more to attract butterflies but that apparently didn't work. The parsley, however, went to seed. Now do I just remove the plants from the soil or do I cut back for another year? Is parsley an annual, biennial or perennial? If I cut it back, how much?

All comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Chuck

It's a biennial and now that its bloomed it ain't long for this world. Paul

You'll probably get lots of little volunteer seedlings where the plants were. :-) Be patient with the butterflies... I think sometimes it takes a year or two for them to find you, and then you'll have swallowtail cats all over your plants! I saw a few this year, hoping for more in years to come.

Chuck,

If you have the garden space available, you may want to leave a couple of plants, trim a couple plants and observe what they do. You can always pull them later. Some folks harvest the parsely root after two years and eat that. If the trimmed plants put out new leaves that are tasty, then you know that is a technique that works in your geographic area.

G_M

Thanks, everybody for all your replies!!! It gives me a lot to think about.

Thanks again,

Chuck

Mine never dies down, and seems to always come back from the mother plant yearly. OUr weather is mild , maybe that's why, it's curly parsley, and I never cut it back. sometimes it drops seeds, but the mother plant I planted 3 years ago has always come back for me.

I ended up cutting the parsley to the ground. If it comes up in Spring, fine and dandy but if it doesn't I will just get more parsley to replace it. I planted the Italian kind last Spring and I think that I will try another kind next year if necessary.

A side note: The fennel was cut to the ground at the same time as the parsley. I keep them both together to attract butterflies. However, the fennel is about six inches tall again already.

Thanks,

Chuck