Verbena hastata Pink Spires ervain

Verbena hastata 'Pink Spires' is a pink horticultural variety of Blue Vervain, a wild North American plant with blue-violet flowers. Its long flowering period, which begins in late spring and stretches into early autumn, is particularly striking. Its pink spikes stand like candelabras above the beautiful, deep, glossy green foliage. Perfect for adding a vertical accent within a flower bed, it delights butterflies and other pollinators, thus promoting biodiversity in the garden. Well-suited to moist to wet soils, even at the water's edge, it thrives in full sun and is absolutely unfazed by the cold.

Vervain (Verbena) is a member of the Verbenaceae family, from which it gets its name, and which is notably represented in southern gardens by the delightful Lantana, also used as annuals elsewhere, or Duranta with its magnificent violet flowering followed by decorative yellow fruits. The Verbena genus comprises approximately 125 species, from annuals to perennials, with habits that can be carpeting (Verbena tenuisecta), more or less mounded, or distinctly upright, as in V. hastata, and hardiness that is equally variable, ranging from intolerance to frost to resistance to cold of around -30°C!
Native to Canada and the United States, Blue Vervain colonises moist soils and all damp environments, such as riverbanks or floodplain forests in its natural habitat, earning it the English name Swamp Verbena.
Verbena hastata 'Pink Spires' quickly forms a beautiful, dense clump with erect, quadrangular stems, reaching 90 cm to over 1.20 m in height when in flower, with a spread of 40 to 50 cm. As its species name indicates, it bears hastate leaves, that is, shaped like a spearhead, with a very elongated lanceolate leaf blade with two small divergent lobes at its base. The deep to dark green, opposite leaves are coarsely toothed with prominent veins. They measure 10 to 13 cm in length and about 2.5 cm in width. This mass of foliage is dominated from June by flowering stems that branch to give about a dozen 10 to 15 cm long spikes. They bear very numerous small pink flowers, with 5 petals, which bloom from the bottom upwards, giving a very characteristic appearance to the plant. The open flowers are topped by closed buds, giving this tall perennial a wild and graceful look. Flowering continues until September, attracting bees and butterflies, and promoting a dynamic, living ecosystem. It is followed by the formation of small, hard, elongated fruits; the plant self-seeds easily when the seeds are released. Furthermore, the original plant spreads along the ground by its rootstocks, potentially forming small colonies under favourable conditions.

Blue Vervain Pink Spires is a perfect plant for naturalistic gardens that favour plants with a wild appearance over very "cultivated" ones. It is particularly suited to moist soils, even at the water's edge. You can plant it alongside Carex flacca 'Blue Zinger', a variety of Sedge with glaucous foliage that also has a very natural look. Filipendula purpurea 'Alba', a purple Meadowsweet with an airy, white, barely pink flowering, will be equally at home in this rustic setting. Eupatorium cannabinum 'Plenum', whose tall stems are crowned with floral corymbs in an old rose colour, will complete your scene and please wild pollinators as much as your Vervain.