The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Asparagus officinalis
Also called Wild asparagus, Asparagus, Sparrow Grass, Common Asparagus
Garden asparagus is a hardy perennial vegetable grown from woody crowns planted in winter, producing edible spring shoots for many years. The key to success is a sunny, well-drained bed with good fertility and patience, since plants need a few years to establish before harvesting.
Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) or garden asparagus is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus Asparagus native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. In 2024, world production of asparagus was 8.9 million tonnes, led by China with 87% of the total.
Since asparagus often originates in maritime habitats, it thrives in soils that are too saline for normal weeds to grow. Thus, a little salt was traditionally used to suppress weeds in beds intended for asparagus; this has the disadvantage that the soil cannot be used for anything else. Some regions and gardening zones are better-suited for growing asparagus than others, such as the west coast of North America and other more maritime, "Mediterranean" environments. The fertility of the soil is a large factor. "Crowns" are planted in winter, and the first shoots appear in spring; the first pickings or "thinnings" are known as sprue asparagus. Sprue has thin stems.
A breed of "early-season asparagus" that can be harvested two months earlier than usual was announced by a UK grower in early 2011. This variety does not need to lie dormant and blooms at 7 °C (45 °F), rather than the usual 9 °C (48 °F).
Sources differ as to the plant's native range, but generally include most of Europe and western temperate Asia.
The genome of the species has been sequenced as a model to study the evolution of sex chromosomes in plants and dioecy.
Asparagus Fern · African asparagus · Asparagus albus · African asparagus fern · Burchells Asparagus · Cape Asparagus · Chinese Asparagus · Sprenger's asparagus fern · Asparagus · Asparagus krebsianus · Fire Asparagus · Grey Asparagus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Asparagus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
