VERVAIN

Family VERBENACEAE
Verbena species
Annual

Hardy and half-hardy perennials, usually grown in Britain as annuals.

The leaves are of a soft texture, oblong, two or three inches in length, and notched; the flowers are borne on nine- to twelve-inch stems and form a broad corymb, two to three inches long, of white, yellow, pink or red colouring.

Verbena hybrida is believed to be a multiple hybrid and closely related to the Chilian species Verbena teucrioides, which possibly has been used to produce the forms of garden origin.
Verbena canadensis is the Clump Verbena with branching stems to one and a half feet, with there are improved forms of garden origin.

A useful sown under glass in March, and the seedlings pricked is also planted out-of-doors in May, or early June.
It is also planted out-of-doors in May, or early June.
It is also practicable to sow out-of-doors in May for flowering in late summer.

Propagation is from seed.

The flowering season is from July to September.

Verbena
Half Hardy Annual.
Six inches to a foot.
Flowers of several colours, July to October.

A very bright and manageable bedding-plant, at present somewhat out of favour.
It will flourish in any tolerable soil, if it be but sweet and well cultivated.
The flowers are in compact flattish heads, scarlet, pink, carmine, rose, violet and mauve, either selfs or with an eye of pure white.

The plants should be planted in the beds not upright, but sloping, and the shoots pegged down to the ground with small wire or wooden hooked pins; they will spread rapidly, and with a little more pegging will cover the bed with a close mass of foliage, thickly set with flowers.
Verbenas enjoy hot weather, provided that they are not dry at the roots; in a dripping summer they unfortunately often refuse to open their buds, and a whole bed may be almost flowerless.
Verbenas may be propagated by cuttings made towards the end of the summer, and kept secure from frost under glass, or they may be raised yearly, from seed sown in boxes early in March, in a hot-bed, or house averaging 60°.
The soil should be rich and sandy, and watered circumspectly; the seedlings must be pricked out under glass as soon as they can be handled, hardened and finally put out in May.
By sowing separate varieties, any colour can be had with tolerable certainty; but for ordinary bedding purposes a good mixture is sufficient.
There is a very charming rose-pink flower of comparatively recent introduction “Miss Willmott”, which is worth of a place wherever Verbenas are grown.

It is possible, where the soil is light and warm, to raise seedlings in the open ground.
Sow carefully in shallow drills easrly in April, on a piece of well-worked soil, with a nice tilth; a little potting-soil mixed in the top stratum will be a help.
The plants may be thinned out when they are a couple of inches high; those taken out may be transplanted and the rest left to flower in the seed bed.
Verbena venosa is a hardy perennial kind, with beautiful purple flowers.
It may be raised from seed in the same way as the annual kinds.