Borage: Is It Actually Worth Growing? (Here’s What the Evidence Says)

• Give A Shit About Nature
• April 14, 2026
• Uncategorized
• 0 Comments

If you’ve spent time in gardening communities, you’ve probably seen borage described as a near-magical companion plant. It supposedly repels hornworms, improves strawberry flavor, fixes soil, attracts every bee within a mile, and tastes like cucumber. Experienced gardeners swear by it. Seed catalogs rave about it.

Some of those claims hold up well. Others are mostly folklore that’s been repeated so many times it’s taken on the weight of fact.

This article sorts the two. If you’re trying to decide whether borage deserves a spot in your garden — and how to use it well if it does — here’s the honest picture.

What borage actually is

Borage (Borago officinalis) is a fast-growing annual herb native to the Mediterranean, now naturalized across much of Europe and North America. It grows one to three feet tall, with thick bristly stems, large hairy leaves, and clusters of vivid blue star-shaped flowers that bloom from early summer through the first frost.

It’s called starflower for obvious reasons once you see it. It’s also called bee bread and bee bush, which turns out to be the most accurate of its common names.

Borage grows easily from seed, tolerates poor soil and some drought, reseeds prolifically, and asks almost nothing from a gardener. Its flowers and young leaves are edible, tasting distinctly of cucumber with a floral note.

How Borage Helps Pollinators

The case for borage as a pollinator plant is genuinely compelling, and it’s better supported than most of its companion planting reputation.

Borage produces nectar continuously through the growing season, including on cloudy days when many other flowers reduce their output. The Old Farmer’s Almanac notes that borage can yield 200 pounds of honey per acre and 60–160 pounds of pollen — figures that explain why beekeepers historically grew it specifically to boost production.

Honeybees, bumblebees, and many native bee species visit it heavily. The blue pollen is notably nutritious. Because it blooms from early summer through frost, it fills an important gap in the seasonal nectar calendar when other summer flowers have faded.

Beyond bees, borage attracts parasitic braconid wasps, predatory hoverflies, and lacewings — insects that prey on aphids, caterpillars, and other garden pests. This is where its companion planting reputation starts to get interesting, and also where the distinction between what’s proven and what’s observed matters.

Borage As A Strawberry Booster

The most commonly repeated companion planting claim about borage is that it improves strawberry growth and flavor. Most gardening sources attribute this to trace minerals borage supposedly lifts from deep soil, plus the pollinator attraction effect.

The flavor improvement is almost certainly anecdotal and hard to test rigorously. Taste is subjective, and there’s no controlled study confirming that borage changes strawberry flavor chemistry.

The yield improvement, however, has been studied directly. A 2020 paper in the journal Ecological Entomology from the University of Sussex tested companion planting borage alongside strawberries — both in researcher-led experiments and in a citizen science project with 110 home gardeners across the UK. The result: strawberry plants paired with borage produced 32% more yield by weight on average compared to control plants without borage.

The mechanism wasn’t trace minerals or mysterious soil chemistry. It was pollinators. Borage drew significantly more flies and bees to the strawberry flowers, improving pollination rates and therefore fruit set.

This is worth sitting with for a moment. A 32% yield increase, in a controlled study with citizen science replication, from adding one easy-to-grow annual nearby. That’s not folklore. That’s a meaningful practical result.

The lesson: borage probably doesn’t improve strawberry flavor in any measurable chemical way. But it almost certainly improves strawberry yield through better pollination. That’s a real benefit worth planting for.

Borage’s Pest Control Factor

Borage is widely credited with repelling tomato hornworms. This appears in nearly every companion planting source. The honest assessment is that the mechanism is probably indirect, not direct.

There is no controlled study showing borage’s scent repels hornworms. What does have support is that borage attracts parasitic braconid wasps, which parasitize hornworm larvae, and lacewings, which eat caterpillar eggs. The reduction in hornworm damage that gardeners report is likely real — but it’s probably happening because borage is boosting the population of natural hornworm predators in the garden, not because hornworms smell borage and stay away.

This distinction matters practically. Direct repellence would require borage to be planted close to hornworm-targeted plants. Attracting predatory insects works at a broader garden scale — a few borage plants anywhere in the garden may be doing more for hornworm management than borage planted in a careful perimeter around each tomato.

The same logic applies to cabbageworm management. Borage attracts the beneficial insects that control them. It probably helps. But “borage repels cabbageworms” oversimplifies what’s actually a habitat-and-beneficial-insect story.

What borage does for soil

The deep taproot claim — that borage mines calcium and potassium from lower soil layers and makes them available to neighboring plants — is biologically plausible but not well-quantified in garden settings.

What is well-supported: borage leaves and stems are mineral-rich and break down quickly in compost, contributing organic matter and nutrients. Chop-and-drop composting of spent borage plants is a genuinely useful practice in a vegetable garden. The leaves make good mulch around heavy feeders.

In no-dig and permaculture garden systems, borage is valued as a dynamic accumulator — a plant that improves soil biology and structure over time through root activity and organic matter return. The evidence here is more observational than experimental, but it aligns with what’s known about how deep-rooted plants function.

What to plant borage with

Based on evidence rather than gardening lore, the strongest pairings are:

Strawberries. The pollinator attraction effect has actual quantitative support. This is the most evidence-backed companion planting use of borage.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and other fruiting vegetables. More pollinators means better fruit set. Any crop that depends on insect pollination benefits from having borage nearby.

Brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale). The beneficial insect habitat borage creates provides real pest management support, even if “borage repels cabbageworms” overstates the mechanism.

Anywhere in the vegetable garden, honestly. The pollinator and beneficial insect benefits operate at the garden level, not just in immediate adjacency to specific plants.

What to avoid planting next to borage: fennel (allelopathic, suppresses most neighboring plants), and be cautious with compact or shade-sensitive plants, as mature borage can reach three feet and casts some shade.

Growing borage

Borage is one of the easiest plants in the garden. The only real mistake to avoid is starting it indoors and transplanting — it dislikes root disturbance because of its taproot, and transplant shock often produces a weak, stunted plant compared to direct-sown seedlings.

Sow directly in the garden after the last frost, once soil has warmed. Push seeds about 1 cm deep. They typically germinate within a week. Thin to 45–60 cm apart once seedlings are 15 cm tall.

Sun and soil: Full sun is best; partial shade is tolerated. Borage is genuinely unfussy about soil quality — it grows well in poor, lean, even somewhat dry soils. Rich, heavily amended soil produces abundant foliage but fewer flowers, which is the opposite of what you want. Don’t fertilize it heavily.

Maintenance: Almost none. Water until established, then leave it alone. Deadheading spent flowers extends the bloom season. Cutting plants back by half in midsummer can rejuvenate tired plants and produce a fresh flush of flowers.

Self-seeding: Borage drops abundant black seeds that overwinter and germinate the following spring. Most gardeners experience it as a perennial in practice. Volunteers are easy to pull if they come up somewhere inconvenient, and easy to transplant when small (before the taproot establishes deeply).

Eating borage

Both the flowers and young leaves are edible, with a mild cucumber flavor and a light floral note.

Flowers are the most versatile. Pick them in the morning when fresh. Float them in drinks — Pimm’s, gin and tonics, homemade lemonade — or freeze them inside ice cubes for visual effect. Toss them into salads. Candy them with egg white and superfine sugar for cake decoration. The vivid blue holds reasonably well.

Leaves are best when young and small. Mature leaves become bristly enough to be unpleasant raw, but soften when cooked. Use young leaves in salads, or cook older ones like spinach — they work well in soups, frittatas, and stuffed pasta.

Borage tea is made from the leaves: one to three tablespoons of fresh leaves, steeped in boiling water for about 15–20 minutes. Mild cucumber flavor, traditionally used as a tonic. Pliny the Elder claimed it cheered the heart; Roman soldiers reportedly drank borage-infused wine for courage before battle.

One caution: borage contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which in high concentrations are associated with liver toxicity. Occasional culinary use in normal quantities is generally considered fine. Pregnant and nursing women are typically advised to avoid it.

Harvesting seeds

If you want to save seed for next year or share with others, allow some flower heads to fully mature and turn brown on the plant. Each spent flower contains four small black seeds. Cut seed heads into a paper bag and dry in a cool, ventilated space. Stored cool and dry, borage seeds remain viable for several years.

Frequently asked questions

Is borage annual or perennial? Annual — it completes its life cycle in one season. In practice, it self-seeds so reliably that most gardeners find it reappears year after year without replanting.

How tall does borage get? Between 30 and 90 cm (one to three feet), with a bushy, branching habit.

What does borage taste like? Mild cucumber with a subtle floral note. The flowers are delicate and slightly sweet; the leaves are more pronounced.

Is borage deer resistant? Yes. The bristly, hairy texture of the leaves makes it unpalatable to deer and most rabbits — a practical advantage in gardens with browsing pressure.

Can you grow borage in a pot? Yes, in a container at least 30 cm (12 inches) deep to accommodate the taproot. It performs better in the ground, and container plants need more frequent watering. For patio pollinator plantings it works alongside lavender, thyme, and other bee-friendly herbs.

When should I plant borage? Direct sow outdoors after the last frost in spring, once soil has warmed. In mild climates, a second sowing in late summer can extend the flowering season into autumn.

Does borage actually repel pests? It probably reduces pest damage, but likely through attracting beneficial predatory insects rather than through direct chemical repellence. The end result for your garden is similar — less damage — but the mechanism matters for where you place it.