Duo of Verbena hastata

A Duo of Verbena hastata with soft pink and lavender blue flowerings. These are stately perennials full of poetry to be tried in a large planting bed or near water. Their flowers, made of fine branching candelabras formed by very straight spikes, covered with tiny flowers, renew themselves for at least three months, in summer, and their vegetation also adorns itself with very beautiful colours in autumn. They succeed everywhere, in any humid, damp or occasionally dry soil, in the sun, and self-seed easily in the garden.

This duo consists of:

1x Pink hastate Verbena: with spikes covered with tiny pink flowers with purple bracts.

1 x Blue hastate Verbena: the same, with flowers of a soft and bright lavender blue.

Originally from Canada and the United States, Verbena hastata, belongs to the family of Verbenaceae. In nature, it colonises damp soil, riverbanks, wet meadows, and flood plains. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, but of short life, sometimes considered as an annual or biennial. Depending on the moisture of the soil, it will reach 60 cm (24in) to 1m (3ft) in height, by 50 to 60 cm (20 to 24in) in width. It develops from a fibrous and rhizomatous stump, forming an erect, narrow tuft, composed of quadrangular stems sometimes ramified towards their ends. The leaves are opposite, 10 to 13 cm (4 to 5in) long, 2.5 cm (1in) wide, lanceolate, veined, coarsely dentate, bright green in color until summer. The vegetation of this Verbena takes on beautiful shades of pink, purple, yellow, and orange from late summer to the first frosts.  From June to September, the stems branch out at their upper ends and give rise to thin and pointed inflorescences, 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6in) in length, composed of numerous buds opening into small five-petal flowers, 5 mm (1in) in diameter, from bottom to top. The flowering is followed by the formation of small, very hard, elongated fruits containing seeds that self-seed easily. Small colonies of plants are also produced from the rhizomes. Plants grown from seeds are more vigorous and more tolerant to drought.

Still little used in our gardens, Verbena hastata is nevertheless easy to grow, valuable for bringing vertical lines to perennial beds, and delightful in cottage gardens. This plant is remarkable at the edge of a water, in damp soil, provided it is planted as a group.  In a slightly wild scene, it emerges from the disheveled or orderly tufts of amaranths, aster laevis, and grasses (small miscanthus, eragrostis, stipes). It also performs quite well in drier soil, however, it will remain smaller. Its light, very architectural spikes, contrast with the roundness of roses, and its purple stems wonderfully accompany the grey or silver foliage of artemisias, the metallic blue of Elymus magellanicum, or rust of Carex buchananii.  The Verbena hastata can also be used to prepare herbal teas.