Now In Bloom

My garden designer friend Doug Bayley gave me a woolly little mullien (Verbascum bombyciferum) summer-before-last, and it's just come into its own. This tough biennial is planted in compacted gravel alongside the driveway and it's the happiest verbascum I've ever grown - finally, I understand how to treat these guys. Water rarely, fertilize not at all, plant in lean, dry soil and ignore them. The result? A wonder of a plant that's as textural as it is architectural, with thick, silvery felted stems and a tall, widely branching candelabra shape.

The first summer it languished as a low rosette of pretty soft leaves. Then early this spring it pushed up and up, unfolding slowly into a tall vividly silvery presence. I'm hoping it'll bloom most of the summer before it sets seed and completes its life cycle; hopefully the gravel driveway has proved hospitable enough that it'll seed itself about to return next year and the next.

Thanks Doug - the perfection of this single driveway plant startles me with its flat out splendor every time I come home...

 

 

Comments

[Matti]

Wow, Verbascum bombyciferum is such a structural little guy. I thought at first it was some crazy cvs of Stachys byzantina. Great job. Matti

[Loree/danger garden]

For the longest time I hated this plant. I've finally come around...your pictures capture it well.

[Sydney Singer]

Hi Aunt Val! I think that is possibly the most amazingly exotic looking plant I've ever seen. I'll have to see if we can grow one, but I doubt it will look as happy as yours!

[valerie Easton]

Hi Syd,
Plant it in dry gravel and ignore it and you'll be able to grow it just fine. Maybe you need to come down to Whidbey Island later this summer to collect some seed....