Spiked speedwell Blue Shades Seeds - Veronica spicata

Veronica spicata Blue Shades, also called spiked speedwell Blue Shades, is a vigorous perennial with a compact, yet graceful habit, bearing long, vertical spikes covered with small, bright blue, star-shaped flowers in summer. Its creeping growth allows the plant's mounds to develop into carpets. It thrives in sunny flowerbeds, on slopes and rock gardens, in rather dry, chalky soil.

Spiked speedwell is a perennial plant of the family Plantagenaceae, formerly classified as the family Scrophulariaceae. It grows mainly in the mountains, up to 2 050 metres above sea level, and more rarely on the plains. It is found growing in meadows, on rocky slopes, at the edge of forests on calcareous soil. The 'Blue Shades' cultivar features a dense, bushy, vigorous growth, reaching 40 cm high and spreading 1 m in diameter from its dense clump. Its hairy stems bear deciduous, oval to linear, dark green leaves with finely toothed margins. In summer, from July to August and sometimes until September, it produces flowers with star-shaped petals of an intense and vivid shade: an intermediate hue of blue, between ultramarine and cobalt, gathered on spikes 60 cm high.

This variety should be planted in any well-drained soils, even stony, calcareous soils and preferably in the sun. Veronica Blue Shades will be very useful to decorate the base of shrub roses or can be planted in dry beds, on a slope, in a rock garden, combined with coneflower, Stipas, red shrubby sages, California poppies or Phlomis. Its bright blue, relatively flexible spikes provide vertical accents to a low-lying bed. The spiked speedwell can also be used as a specimen plant.