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...
