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It has been quite a while since the flowers started to open on the purple mullein in my garden. (This variety is Verbascum phoeniceum ‘Violetta’.) The photographs here were taken before mid-May; now in June we’re still only about half-way up the flower spike. It will be some time before I can photograph open flowers at the top!
An advantage of the way the opening of the individual flowers slowly progresses upwards is that it makes the flower spike last longer. That’s good for the visiting bees and makes for a longer-lasting splash of purple. A win-win, as far as I’m concerned!
As well as lasting for a long time, the numbers of these flowers is gradually increasing over the years too. Each plant isn’t long-lived but they self-seed readily and have scattered seedlings around the parent plants. (I’ll give them a bit of help and sprinkle some seed around the rest of the garden.) Because I have no other verbascums, these have remained the same purple as the original plants and, with time, I’m hoping to have lots of them dotted through the borders. Meanwhile, I’m waiting to be able to photograph the top of the flower spike when it opens…
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
Perhaps this is but one more case
Of “slow and steady wins the race.”
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Hehe, Steve, especially if the bees pollinate it well and we get plenty of seeds for more plants! (And I’m thinking that I should be winning a few races myself…!)
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Oh, this is a perfect colour for my garden. So rich.
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I can thoroughly recommend this one! It seems very happy in the conditions over here (which are rather damper than usual) and is an easy plant in our garden. I love this colour, so I probably won’t grow any of the other colours, just so it continues to come true from self-seeding. 🙂
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All of the Verbascum species here are introduced, and there aren’t very many of them. The one I’m most familiar with is Verbascum thapsus, which has yellow flowers and which sometimes is known as ‘cowboy toilet paper’ because of its very large, soft basal leaves. The color of yours is gorgeous — how tall does it get? I’ve seen our specie’s bloom stalk three and four feet tall.
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This verbascum is around 2 to 3ft tall, so easy to find room for in the garden. (The leaves are smallish and green, unlike the silvery leaves of Verbascum thapsus and the yellow-flowered cultivated varieties.) We often see V. bombyciferum and V. olympicum in gardens around here and they are magnificent at up to 7ft tall.
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Such beauties! You captured them so well!
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Thank you Indira! They are pretty and it’s such a bonus that they multiply themselves so easily. 🙂
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Such a lovely shade of purple, Ann. I can understand why you want the flowers to open one after the other and linger.
I have never seen a purple mullein, we only see the yellow mullein, which was introduced from Europe and has spread very successfully.
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The yellow mulleins (there are several) are seen around here too, but are much bigger than these. There are other very pretty colours, but this one is my favourite. (I can’t resist purples and blues!) I’m guessing that the successful spread is down to their ability to self-seed so easily.
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I can relate to your preference of purples and blues! And to their ability to self-seed–they have thousands of seeds in each plant!
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Hehe, I’m just thinking about how many plants in the garden have huge quantities of seeds – it’s a good thing that they don’t all germinate! 🙂
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