Skirret
Sium sisarum
Also called Crummock and Sugar root
Garden plant · Herbs, veg & fruitA PERENNIAL root crop — lift a clump in winter, break off the fat roots to eat and replant the crown, and you never sow it again. The roots have a woody core in older plants; take the youngest and leave the rest in the ground.
Care at a glance
- Ease
- Easy
- Water
- Every 3 daysWater the ground — water at the base, in the morning, not over the leaves.
- Light
- Sun to part shade, in ground that stays damp
- Feed
- Every 45 days
- Humidity
- Average
- Hardiness
- Hardy — a very cold winter RHS H6, to -20°C
- Size
- 1.2 m tall · 0.5 m across
- Lifecycle
- Perennial
- Origin
- East Asia
Is it safe for pets and people?
No animal-poison authority lists this plant either way.
Nobody has checked this one against a source for us yet, so treat it as unknown rather than safe.
Neither authority names Sium. That is an absence and not a clean bill — and it is an umbellifer, a family holding both food and some of the deadliest plants in Britain, so never identify one from the leaf alone.
Checked against ASPCA and RHS on 2026-09-22. Where a source says nothing, we say nothing.
A guide, not veterinary or medical advice. If a pet or a person has eaten a plant and you are worried, call your vet or doctor now — don’t wait for signs to appear. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
First signs of trouble
- A hard string running down the middle of every root. Older plants do this — take the youngest fattest roots each winter and replant the crown, which is how it was grown for four hundred years.Woody cores · disorder
- Leaves going rusty red and wilting in warm weather, with fine tunnels in the roots underneath. It is an umbellifer and gets what carrots get.Carrot fly · pest