Plant Spotlight: Verbena Bonariensis
Cautiously celebrating this magnificent lollipop.
This is one of the few plants where the Botanic name is more delightful than the common name (Purpletop Vervain? snooze). ‘Verbena Bonariensis’ happily bounces off the tongue, as do my praises of her as an easy, reliable, and stunning flower beloved by both humans and pollinators.
BUT with many easy and reliable plants, she needs boundaries. Verbena Bonarienses is a prolific self-seeder and, though wonderful, will take over if you let her.
Why I Love Her (and How She Saved Me in 2025)
This past year, Verbena Bonariensis came to my rescue twice:
The ‘Purple Rain” Patio Garden needed a late summer hit of purple.
The new Prairie bed was going to need fillers while the other plants grew up.
I sowed and planted out Verbena Bonariensis the previous year, so seedlings were popping up everywhere, as if in anticipation of my problems:
Smack dab in the middle of a path
in the patio cracks
in a raised bed
randomly in the middle of the lawn.
Well, I dug her up from a few places and put her where I needed her. She was super chill about the moves and carried on growing as if nothing happened. Wherever I plopped her, she grew up into tall dancing lollipops of Lisa Frank purple.
Verbena Bon Bon’s Dark Side (we all have one)
Though she is a delight, she also has been known to elicit a damning brow furrow from me.
If you have humid summers like we do in Chicagoland, you’ll find that her leaves might get smothered with a powdery mildew around September. Not cute. If she’s not around other plants to hide it, it can be pretty unsightly. This might be a good time to cut her down, which will also help mitigate future seedlings.
And I’ve mentioned self-seeding, but I’m serious. If you’re starting to see too many of her popping up, be brave and pull up a good amount. No matter how innocent and determined she looks. Otherwise, she’ll just end up being a weedy nuisance and all the joy she brings will dissipate.
Bottom line: plant her with love but also boundaries. You don’t want her to be the guest that starts out great but then overstays her welcome.