• Tweet
• 

• Tweet
• 

VERBENA (ver-bee’-nah). A genus of perennial herbs (sometimes known by the ancient name Vervain) grown in gardens for their white, red or lilac flowers in broad flat clusters. There are also some shrubby wild forms.

The species most widely grown is Verbena hortensis (Garden Verbena), a hybrid race with variously colored flowers and varying habits of growth, usually semi-trailing, the shoots rooting readily. The color forms usually seen are one-color, eyed, and striped. They are brilliant and decorative plants, frequently delightfully fragrant and furnish continuous bloom from June until late fall. They are used for massing in beds, for edgings, to fill in spaces in the border left vacant by spring bulbs, and as a ground-cover among summer or fall bulbs, such as gladiolus and lycoris.

Although perennial in the South, they are treated as annuals North, being grown from seed sown in boxes or flats in a sunny window in the house, in a hotbed, or in the greenhouse. The seedlings after being transplanted at least once are set outdoors in May, about 12 in. apart. Seed may also be sown in the open in April or May to bloom about midsummer.

ENEMIES. If powdery mildew should appear on verbena leaves, dust with sulphur. For the spinach aphids which may infest plants, spray with malathion and soap or some other contact insecticide. The verbena bud-worm bores in the new shoots causing them to wither; the larva, less than in. long, is greenish yellow with a black head; the adult is a purplish-brown moth. To control it clip off and burn infested tips. A leaf miner is probably more disfiguring than destructive.

The “woolly bear,” a white, yellow or brown caterpillar 2 in. long and covered with long yellow to reddish brown hairs, feeds on the leaves in late summer and spins cocoons under rubbish. Control by picking off and deStroying the caterpillars or spraying with lead arsenate.

Many varieties of Verbena have been developed and as they do not come true from seed they must be increased by cuttings, usually taken late in September and rooted in moist sand.

Other species of Verbena, all perennials, but likewise treated as annuals are: Verbena rigida (often listed as V. venosa), the tuber verbena, blooming the first year from seed and spreading rapidly, bearing many short spikes of purplish flowers; Verbena laciniata (Moss Verbena), a low-growing plant with finely cut leaves and lavender flowers in small heads; V. pulchella, also with cut leaves and blue or lilac flowers; Verbena canadensis (Clump Vervain), more erect in habit, with rose, white or purple blossoms in spikes; Verbena hastata, a tall native plant growing in damp ground, with small dark blue flowers in spikes; and Verbena olficinalis, with pale lavender flowers on 2-ft. spikes, the only Old-World species, though found as an escape in N. America.

Lemon- or Lemon-scented-verbena is Lippia citriodora; Sand-verbena is Abronia.