Scottish growing tool

Rocket Variety Selector: Which One For Your Garden

Every recommendation below traces back to our full Rocket varieties comparison — this page is the fast route to one answer for your specific situation, no clicking through required.

If: A quick, repeat-sown crop through summer → Stronger, hotter flavour, faster than true wild rocket

Sky Rocket

Sky Rocket combines wild rocket's stronger, hotter flavour with salad rocket's faster growth, bred to close the flavour gap between the two species without asking for wild rocket's slower establishment. If the appeal of wild rocket is the flavour rather than the perennial habit, this is the salad-type answer to that. Like every named rocket variety, it doesn't carry the RHS Award of Garden Merit; rocket sits outside that award scheme entirely.

If: A quick, repeat-sown crop through summer → Best bolt resistance, so I can push my sowing gaps or A quick, repeat-sown crop through summer → Not sure, just give me the safest all-round choice or Not sure, just give me the safest all-round choice

Dragon's Tongue

Dragon's Tongue has purplish-veined leaves and is specifically noted for good bolt resistance, which buys more slack between fortnightly sowings and more forgiveness if a hot spell or crowded row pushes plants toward flowering early. Scotland's summers rarely deliver the sustained heat that triggers heavy bolting, but a warm dry fortnight still happens, and Dragon's Tongue is genuine insurance against it rather than insurance needed every year. Like every named rocket variety, it doesn't carry the RHS Award of Garden Merit.

If: Years of low-effort picking, plant once and forget it

Wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia)

Wild rocket doesn't really have a best-variety question the way salad rocket does; named cultivars aren't really a thing here, it's mostly sold and grown as the species itself. It tolerates poorer, drier soil than most leaf crops, and crucially it keeps producing after it bolts and flowers, including the edible flowers, rather than being finished the way salad rocket is; with protection it can keep cropping into winter and start again the following spring. The trade-off is that it establishes more slowly than salad rocket, so it's a poor choice if you want a fast first harvest. It doesn't carry the RHS Award of Garden Merit either.

Answer these as a quick wizard instead →
Rocket growing guide →Full Rocket varieties comparison →

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