Lacy phacelia is a western North American annual that has become a fixture in European agriculture as a cover crop and pollinator strip, and is only now gaining the recognition in American gardens that its feathery foliage and coiled fiddle-head flower clusters deserve. The leaves are finely divided and ferny, and the blue-purple flowers unroll from tightly coiled croziers as they open, a distinctive trait common to the borage family. It grows 1 to 3 feet tall in full sun, tolerating sandy, rocky, or lean soils with ease, and is genuinely drought tolerant once established.

Sow seed directly on the soil surface after last frost; scratching the coat and soaking overnight improves germination. It self-seeds readily, which can tip into weediness in receptive ground, but the plant is shallow-rooted and easy to till back in, adding nitrogen as it decomposes. At its best threaded through a cutting garden or sown in a naturalized pollinator border, where its prolonged bloom season and extraordinary appeal to bees justifies the minor management it occasionally requires.