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PL... Mine are just starting to come up from new last year, so I really don't remember what they looked like. They already look fuller than last year, buy only 4" tall right now.
Addendum... What I THOUGHT were the brazillian verbena (v. bonaresis) is not... so I haven't seen any seedlings yet from last year's plants. They are supposed to be perennial in my zone...
Verbena bonariensis are supposedly hardy to zone 7, self seed easily even here in zone 4b, but are very late to germinate..have to be careful not to weed out the seedlings. DO not germinate here until early June, so I also save a few seeds to start indoors for earlier bloom.
This verbena variety spreads like a weed here in Sacramento (zone 9). I had difficulty growing my first seeds from Thompson and Morgan - only one survived and then only because I placed my last 1" inch seedling in a flower bed and ignored it. Now, I have about 30 active plants, and I probably pull out 200 seedlings per year from all over my garden.
Seedlings grow into wimpy versions of established plants, with only three of four wispy shoots getting up to about four feet their first year. These small plants bloom from mid summer to frost with no blooms falling off. The 1" cluster lantana-like purple blooms eventually turn a light brown - not ugly but certainly not attractive.
In the second year, established plants have about 30 stems rising to 7 feet with several hundred flowers each spread out in a giant three-dimentional see-through fan. Bees love them. They bloom for about 3 months before they lose most of their purple color in mid-June. I cut the stems back to about 2 feet, and enjoy a second, though less spectacular, bloom from August until November when they start to look spent. I replace plants about every three years.
The rough textured long stems and prickly sharp leaves look something like one would expect from a giant weed, but the plants are quite a novelty and, once established, they only need water about every two weeks here in a very hot Sacramento summer climate (although they appreciate water every week).
Neighbors are always asking me what they are, but I'm afraid many of them think I am growing gigantic purple weeds. Still, they are one of my favorite plants if only because everyone who sees a cluster of these giants in full bloom in my front yard is invariably stunned. I use them as foreground see-through plantings over bark in front of my more conventional bedding plants next to my house.
