In focus: verbascum (Filed: 25/08/2001)
Fred Whitsey finds it strange that so amiable a plant should have dark associations
WHEN a plant sheds its common name and becomes known only by its official Latin title, it is a sure sign that it has come up in the world. The verbascum has shrugged off as many as 10 downmarket pseudonyms as it has ascended the horticultural social scale, moving from the disorderly surroundings of the cottage garden to elegant colour-themed plantings.
It deserves this elevation, even though it is a short-lived perennial, which lasts no more than three or four seasons before it has to be replaced. It is a stately plant that combines architectural form with beautiful colouring. Even the hungry slugs, always so abundant in our garden, seem in awe of it - they are wary of nibbling it, though I notice that they are not above taking their ease in the shade of its ample leaves.
Each verbascum leaf can be 1ft long and nearly half as wide. They lie flat on the ground, like an open fan. From this solid base the flower stems rise, several to each plant, often reaching 3ft in height.
In summer winds, such as those we have had this year, which snap off delphiniums and toss sunflowers awry, the verbascum stands defiant.
Its poise makes this plant a natural candidate for the front of a mixed border, even though its height might suggest, as with hollyhocks, that it should go at the back. But it is strange that so amiable a garden plant, at its best in the heady days of high summer, should have such dark associations in plant lore. Old writers suggest that it was used by sorcerers. Poachers of fish are said to have made their quarry drunk by feeding them the seeds. Cockroaches are allergic to one species. A concoction from the tissues is supposed to turn the hair as golden as a goddess's, and a tisane has been claimed to cure many ills, from gout to ringworm.
Perhaps most unusual of all is a recipe for a treatment for dysentery devised by poor old Tournefort, the 17th-century botanist in the royal service, plant explorer, and author of one of the first botanical partworks, who met his end ingloriously under the wheel of a cart. Boil the plant in water into which a blacksmith has plunged red-hot irons, he says.
In our garden, we have for many years welcomed the presence of a self-sown plant of the yellow Verbascum thapsus, a native biennial, which always took up an exposed position, like those pushy people who take it for granted that a place at the front is theirs for the taking.
It was covered with a silvery down, indicating a special liking for sun and sharply draining soil. Alas, last winter's damp was too much for it.
Vita Sackville-West wrote in 1936 that her verbascums looked as though "a colony of tiny buff butterflies had settled all over them". She described the colourings as "dusty, fusty, musty".
Verbascums have not changed much since then. The Cotswold Group about which she was writing are still grown, and there are others - 'Pink Domino', 'Megan's Mauve', and the new variety, 'June Johnson' - in which purple and apricot have somehow become interwoven.
Nor would one want to see the flowers "improved" - enlarged, made brighter or more thickly clustered. The indeterminate pinks, muddy apricots and bleached yellow shades give the plant an air of mystery.
Today, verbascums deserve romantic roles: as partners for old roses, which they succeed in flower; in groupings of which the main members are rounded or vase-like in shape; or, in their white-flowered forms, standing in front of softly coloured hydrangeas.
Growing tips
To prolong the life of verbascum plants, cut away the spent flower stems as soon as the bloom is over. The stems can be dried for flower arrangements.
To ensure a supply of replacement plants, verbascums
are easily propagated by means of root cuttings - a
method little used by amateurs. In March, scrape soil
away from roots area with a hand fork. Take a knife and
sever two or three fat, strong roots. Cut these into 2in
lengths and set them upright, individually, in small pots of
potting soil with plenty of perlite mixed in. After three
months in a frame and kept watered, each will have
grown into a new plant.
-- Anonymous, August 25, 2001