verbena bonariensisMention Verbena to most gardeners and they would think of flowering plants raised from seed for hanging baskets and pots in a wide range of colours, but this cultivar is very different.
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A valuable addition to any late summer border, this is an open, airy and very tall perennial, flowering from mid-summer to early autumn. It has rough, branching stems reaching 1.5m (5 ft) high which are square and each stem holds a mass of tiny, lilac-purple flowers at its end.
This creates a transparent, see-through effect which allows this tall plant to be used even at the front of a border.
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If the winter is very cold and damp, this plant may not live through these conditions, but will readily self-seed to produce new plants for next summer. Yet with the mild winter we have had in recent years, most will now make it through!
One of the best attributes of this verbena is the attraction it holds for butterflies - they continuously smother the flowers during the flowering season
Linette Applegate. |
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