Vitex agnus-castus Blue Puffball - Chaste Tree

Vitex agnus-castus 'Blue Puffball' is a new variety of Chaste Tree with very compact growth, perfectly suited for small spaces and container gardening. This round-shaped shrub, with no other requirements than a sunny exposure, has more than one advantage: summer flowering with clusters of beautifully deep lavender-blue scented flowers, decorative and aromatic fruiting, beautiful palmate grey-green foliage that emits a fragrance, good cold resistance, and exemplary frugality and sobriety. The list of its qualities would be incomplete if we forget to mention that it tolerates sea spray perfectly and adapts to salty, sandy, poor, or even limestone soils. Objectively, few plants can rival this versatile Vitex, which is ready to make its entrance into any garden.

Vitex agnus-castus is a shrub from the Verbenaceae family, native to the Mediterranean basin and Asia Minor. While it is particularly robust and easy to grow, it is often criticised for its excessive growth, disorderly habit, and lackluster flowering. All these flaws are corrected with this new 'Blue Puffball' variety, which is truly dwarf, obtained recently after years of experimental selection in the United States.

'Blue Puffball' has a very rounded and bushy, compact habit, with gracefully upright branches. When mature, it will measure approximately 1.1 m (4 ft) in all directions. Its flowering takes place from July to September, depending on the climate, on the current year's shoots. Upright spikes, adorned with tiny flowers of a rather dark lavender-blue colour, cover the plant. Then small fruits the size of peppercorns form, which are very aromatic, dark red and shiny, and persist until winter. The fast-growing stems are strong and very flexible. Quite late in spring, these then develop palmate leaves which are divided into 5 slender lobes. The colour of the leaves is a dark greenish-grey, matte, and slightly silvery when they first emerge. The foliage emits a strong peppery scent when crushed, hence its nickname of Pepper Tree. Vitex plants have a very deep root system, which allows them to draw moisture from deep down when the summer is dry. In very cold regions, the above-ground parts of the shrub will be destroyed, without harmful consequences for the plant, which will regrow within a few months and bloom abundantly on its new shoots. The deciduous foliage falls in autumn.

Often found by the coast, sometimes very close to the shore and anchored in the sand between rocks, Vitex agnus-castus withstands drought once well established, much like the Tamarisks with which it gets along well. Having retained the qualities of this undemanding and sturdy shrub, the 'Blue Puffball' variety proves to be more elegant, more brilliant, and easier to use in the garden, even when space is limited. Its modest growth allows it to fit into small perennial beds, in a container on the terrace, in the foreground of a shrub bed. For example, associate it with oleanders (in mild climates), pink repeat-flowering roses (The Fairy), dwarf buddleias, or even a summer-flowering Tamarisk. This shrub with the appearance of a giant blue lupin is superb surrounded by yellow daylilies, shrubby Russian sages, and grasses like Miscanthus Yaku jima, etc.

Its vernacular name of 'Monk's Pepper' dates back to the Middle Ages when some clergymen consumed the berries of the shrub to resist the temptations of the flesh. Since then, studies have proven the plant's properties to relieve problems related to hormonal fluctuations in women. In Ancient Greece, the stems of Vitex were used to make strong bindings. Legend has it that Ulysses used these to tie his companions under the bellies of sheep, allowing them to escape from the Cyclops' cave.