Mullein
– Verbascum
Hardy Perennial.
Four to six feet.
Flowers yellow (also white and purple varieties),
July and August.
The Mulleins are tall “back-row”
plants for the herbaceous border, desirable more
for stately habit than for the individual quality
of their flowers.
Several of the family are fairly common in a wild
state in parts of the British Isles; the best
kind for the garden is Verbascum pannosum, in
growth resembling a giant Foxglove,
with a ground tuft of leaves and a stout elastic
stem rising to six feet in height, and ending
in a long spike of close-set, small, light yellow
flowers.
All the foliage is covered with a greyish woolly
coat.
The flowers open in succession up the spike, which
lasts a long time, but occasionally shows a fault
in flowering too much by degrees and detachments,
so that the dead flowers sometimes outnumber the
living, and there are bare patches on the stem.
The Mullein may be planted as a single specimen
or in groups; it must in any case have plenty
of elbow room and open exposure not shadowed by
other growths.
Besides Verbascum pannosum may be grown Verbascum
phoeniceum, two or three feet high, with flowers
in several shades of mauve and purple;
Verbascum nigrum, four feet, yellow,
Verbascum Olympicum, six feet, with fine foliage
and yellow flowers.
The Mulleins may be raised from seed sown in early
summer, either in a seed bed of nice friable soil
in the open or, where the natural conditions are
unfavourable, in boxes of sandy compost.
See also : Verbascum
|
