Verbena Species, Purpletop Vervain, Brazilian Verbena, Upright Verbena

I've had 2 plants in this sandy Florida ground for almost a year and they were great. Suddenly last month they began to fail- looked as i...Read Moref they were going to seed, but the entire plants look dead. Two others I'd put a few months ago in the same bed are fine. Any ideas??

I have this plant in my northeastern Minnesota zone 3 yard and it gets pretty cold here. It was -33 below the other day and that's withou...Read Moret the wind chill added in. The roots never make it through our winter but it does manage to self-seed a bit. Easy to pull out if in the wrong place. Butterflies love it.

I wanted to give Verbena bonariensis a neutral or positive rating because I love the plant, the color, form etc, and especially that it's...Read More major draw to butterflies and bees in my yard, but as others have mentioned it is invasive. I am finding it sprouting in pavement cracks, potted plants etc. It's not a huge issue for me but I can see where it could become one. I would discourage planting anything like this which will impact native species. I am in 9a, Sonoma area and our climate seems to suit it all too well.

This is a beautiful long lasting bloomer in our zone. This is the second season I've had it and no problems with reseeding itself. It ...Read Morecame back this year from the roots. Lovely breezy plant.

got seeds last fall and have still to see any germinate. Sowed some in bare ground, some in pots and left outside over the winter in Loui...Read Moresville, Ky. Have sowed some in the house after seeds were in frig for a couple of weeks. Still nothing. Any info appreciated

Airy, elegant, and long-blooming.

A pretty and useful self-sowing annual here in Boston Z6a. Self-sows a little too freely...Read More for my taste here, but though it routinely needs thinning, it's sometimes useful, especially in containers. I occasionally see a plant winter over, but it never flowers well in its second year.

The sparingly foliated stems make it a good see-through or "scrim" plant for the front of the border, when not too densely planted. The open structure means that in a container it forms a cloud of flowers, but has little architectural presence.

Powdery mildew often disfigures the leaves late in the season, especially in partial shade.

Some sources say that this species is invasive in natural areas in the Pacific northwest and in the US southeast. I've never seen it naturalize here in New England. According to BONAP, it has naturalized in three states: GA, SC, and NC. According to the USDA Plants database, it's not on the invasive list of any state. Check for regionally appropriate sources of information to know whether it's a problem for your local ecology---in the USA, your state Department of Natural Resources.

I have just purchased 2 plants in 10" pots and plan on using them in a newly established butterfly garden. In my region they will not be...Read More affected by winter. If everything I have read is true, I look forward to them overtaking my entire property, in fact if there were a field of them surrounding me it would be fine. The only plants I consider invasive are ones that take over and dont contribute to the benefit of the wildlife or crowd out more desireable species. This plant appears to grow with an open branching and airyness that wont be an issue.

Planted this on the edge of a lawn in Silicon Valley. The sprinkler over-spray seems to be causing powdery mildew on the foliage.
...Read More
The plant was gorgeous and very tall in the spring, and the bees love it. However, by mid-summer it was seriously flopping over and looking a little ratty.

If I keep this one, I'll move it farther away from the lawn and see if that helps with the mildew and flopping.

This is without a doubt one of the very best butterfly attracting plants I have ever planted. Butterflies ignore my buddleia planted rig...Read Moreht next to it in favor of this plant. If you want to attract butterflies to your garden, this is the plant for you. It's airy nature is lovely interspaced throughout the garden. I love the fact that it reseeds in my garden - more plants to share with friends!!

Reseeder, yes, but seedlings easily removed. ATTRACTS BUTTERFLIES like nothing I have ever seen!! Won't be without it.

I bought one of these plants this year, and I hope it self-seeds, as it is not listed as a perennial in my Zone 6b location. Not only is...Read More the plant beautiful, but it attracted a variety of butterflies. It also attracted a sphinx moth, and that is something I rarely see. The sphinx moth even stayed on it long enough for me to finally get a decent picture. I would love it for just that alone. I have it planted in a rock garden, so I should be able to pull up any unwanted plants if it gets out of hand. :-)

I bought one plant several years ago and have never been without them since. They have always come back from the roots and also reseed t...Read Morehemselves. There were greater numbers of them the first couple of years but I have always been able to just pull out the plants I didn't need. Have never thought of it as an invasive weed because we have such difficult conditions here (Guthrie, OK) -- we have extremes of 0 cold or below in winter and last year had 70 days of 100+ temps with strong south winds and horrible drought. It just bakes everything above and below ground, the soil temps get so high. So anything this tough and beautiful (the butterflies just hang on it!) has a permanent place in my garden. If you have trouble getting them to survive winter, plant on the south side of the house. The ones I have there now just seeded themselves among pavers two years ago and they are 3' tall now and already blooming. They start in March or April and bloom til hard frost. They will even grow and bloom in partial shade here.

Like many of the other southerners that have commented here, I like the plant BUT...... yesterday I discovered an entire field of it rig...Read Moreht next to my house. I am worried that the few plants in my daylily beds will become invasive. I am going to try to keep only one or two and pull up all others I see and I will still have more than I will probably want.

I certainly don't remember planting this, but it's slightly over 4 feet tall, looking like a strange candelabra with purple "flames" at t...Read Morehe tips. I find it comical in appearance, and the bees just love it.
I may change my mind about it next year if it becomes invasive, but this volunteer was a pleasant surprise this growing season. I'll try to remember to deadhead before seed set.

Larger and I believe less invasive than Tuber or Stiff Vervain

This does reseed for me, but not invasively so. Surprisingly, even after a cold, long winter, I had some of these come back from the root this year.

Love this, great floater in the gardenn.

I planted a shrub border with one-gallon plants, so there was lots of space between the little shrubs. I planted v. bonariensis in betwe...Read Moreen and put a lot of mulch down on top of weed barrier cloth. It filled in the spaces quite nicely without shading the shrubs. The verbena didn't overwinter and didn't reseed, either...probably because of the mulch. I replanted them again this year because the shrubs are still pretty small, but I will probably not plant them again next year, since I won't be needing to. But I love this plant, it's beautiful.

I absolutely love this plant! It self sows in my garden but it is always welcome, creating visual interest in unexpected places. Butterfl...Read Moreies and hummingbirds are crazy for it too!

Here in Ottawa the National Capital Commission has been using Verbena bonariensis in concrete boulevard planters downtown for the ...Read Morepast few summers, resulting in high demand (& short supply!) of seedling flats at local garden centers. It brings a lovely purple presence above the other plants, and copes well with urban conditions.

Love the way it looks, but it is an aggressive reseeder. The seedling have popped up 20 feet from the original plant. Impossible to get...Read More rid of unless you pull the plants before they go to seed.

Although I appreciate it's value to Butterflies, it is an extremely hardy invasive non-native in the US. The US Forst Service lists it a...Read Mores a Forest Pest. Areas with hard and prolonged freezes may be able to keep it under control and from spreading to parks and preserves. I would not plant it in Houston - why bother, it's taken over acres here!

Love this plant! It is definitely not invasive in my Olympic Peninsula garden [coastal Washington State] which admittedly tends toward p...Read Moreretty heavy clay soil. It's a very nice "see-through" plant to add some taller interest to the front and middle sections of the border. I let it grow wherever it decides to grace me with its presence.

This is actually returning from the roots here in zone 6a after a pretty hard winter. It is not from reseeding, but actually from the ro...Read Moreots.

This plant is awesome! I started with (3) 1 quart plants from the local nursery and the next year, I had hundreds of plants! It re-seeded...Read More in the nearby pasture and completely filled a 100 square feet area with purple blooms in late April, continuing to bloom all summer. The butterflies do love it. I plan on sharing some of the seeds with others this year.

This plant not only reseeds like crazy, it is also a perennial in my zone 6 garden. I've got some plants that are 3 years old, the old s...Read Moretems will die back to the ground in the winter and new growth comes back at the base every year.

While I find this perennial very pretty, it can self seed in droves! It loves our Mediterranean climate and though I thought I had eradic...Read Moreated it, the seed lay dormant in the soil for almost 4 years. I have it again! It comes back with a vengeance!

One of the best plants for attracting Butterflies!!!

I've seen Hummers at it too.

Great plant, ...Read Morebut I let it go to seed too much that I have seedlings coming up all over the place and now have been pulling up any that I see growing and get rid of them. I'm trying not to let it grow anymore in my yard.

While there have been complaints about this being a rampant reseeder, in my garden, the more it reseeds the better. Unlike other reseede...Read Morers, the foliage is so sparse it looks wonderful coming up through other plants, whether they're shorter or taller! And while other plants may be spent for the season, these bloom just about until frost for me, and the butterflies love it.

This is actually surviving the winter here this year; I found a plant when I was cleaning out my beds the other day! I have heard that w...Read Moree are now unofficially zone 6, and my information says that Verbena bonariensis is hardy in zones 6-10. Other years it has just self-seeded itself. Stratification and darkness aid germination of seeds. Blooms July - October in my garden.

Brazilian Verbena creates a lacey scrim giving the brightly colored plants behind them an air of mystery. After 3 years in my Zone 8 gar...Read Moreden, I realize how neutral a shade the lavender flowers are, but the self-sown combination of this Verbena in front of purple-rose Cleome is an especially fetching color echo.

Perhaps the nutrient-poor sandy soil in their bed is the reason that Brazilian Verbena's spread has been modest. My original plants were winter sown. Seed is easy to collect and share.

Verbena bonariensis easily self seeds here in the Eastern section of the Green Mountains of Vermont (zone 4B). Its quirky, lacy charm is ...Read Moreovershadowed by the frightening potential of seeding into nearby pastures and fields, making it less than desirable as a gardening choice in our rural areas. We planted one 4-pack of small plants three years ago and have had to pull out numerous plants each year that self seeded into fields nearby. Hispid stems make this task unpleasant. Perhaps even in an urban setting the pant might not be appropriate, because it could potentially establish in urban waste places and escape into the countryside in a wide range of climates. This species seems to adapt to most soils and the seeds can over winter even in our cold area.

I love this plant, despite it being currently 'trendy' in the media. The first year of growing, it only grew to about three feet, with a ...Read Morecouple of flowerheads. The following year it's at about six feet and very floriferous, having overwintered happily in our thick British clay. Looks fantastic next to bamboo.

Funny, I didn´t know this species until recently, when I found some growing volunteerly on a road side near here. I guess it can become ...Read Moreweedy under some conditions.

I was told this plant was hardy to Zone 5, but they never come back after the winter (I've tried 3 times).

- Kathleen (N...Read MoreW Rhode Island)

I live in Northern Irealnd and I would not be without this plant - it self seeds (a lot) in a gravel bed beside my pond, but it is easy t...Read Moreo weed out from this. The butterflies love it (attracts peacock butterflies which aren't too common here). From last week (mid Sept), blue tits were hanging acrobatically from the flower heads - not sure what they were eating - there was up to 10 at one time - a truly beautiful sight. Added to this, it is always a much admired plant by garden vistors and there is always a self -seeded plant to give away. I wouldn't let it loose in a normal soil bed though!!

I love this plant too, because of the very bright flowers. It seems to glow.

Verbena bonariensis has become one of the favorite plants in my (full sun, Northern Virginia) perennial bed. This plant starts blooming ...Read Morein late spring and continues all summer long. The small flowers are a wonderful neon-like shade of purple. The flower stalks shoot a couple feet above the main foliage making it rather unique, but also requires some thought on how to integrate this into your garden.

In this area of Victoria in Australia, Purple-top Verbena has become an invasive weed, covering large areas of open ground and crowding o...Read Moreut the native species. Pulling the plants is fairly effective control, but the prickly stems make gloves a must.

In central to coastal Texas (zones 8-9), Verbena bonariensis behaves like a short-lived perennial. Like other plants adapted to s...Read Moreemi-arid conditions, it needs to spread its roots far and wide; therefore, it quickly becomes pot-bound in a nursery liner (one gallon or less) and looks terrible in no time. I obtained my start for free from a nursery proprietor in Houston who saw me selecting homely orphan plants from the obscure back benches.

Most xeriscape specimens tend to look dreadful in pots but recover quickly in the ground. In my garden, that initial plant bloomed itself to death after a spectacular show over several months. It came back from seed the next season. Owing to the low germination rate of the minute seeds, I do not consider this plant invasive. Volunteers tolerate transplanting quite well. Hummingbirds and butterflies love this plant. Keep it well away from pathways -- you will find the leaves prickly-scratchy.

In my zone 6b, this is a self-seeding annual. The foliage is so sparse that I prefer to grow it through a shrub in order for the flowers ...Read Morestand out. The butterflies and bees love it!

An erect, clump-forming tender perennial with stiff, widely branched stems, it can reach 3-6' in height with an open, airy spread of 1-3'...Read More. The airy, see-through habit of purpletop verbena makes it a good choice for the front or middle of a mixed border. Weave a line of purpletop verbena through a bed or border of other butterfly flowers.

Best planted in columns or masses because it is so thin it will be overlooked all by itself. Will freely self-seed if not deadheaded.

I've had this plant in my garden for two years - a quart-sized pot has overwintered, as well as re-seeded nicely. A keeper!