Purple Homestead Verbena

Verbena 'Homestead Purple' is one of my favorite plants to grow in my flower garden. 

This plant is a cultivar of a native verbena and is highly commercially available at garden centers and nurseries. "Most of the perennial verbenas in nurseries are derived from trailing verbena (Glandularia canadensis), a species native to the southeastern U.S." (1) I love this plant because it is at least somewhat native to this region and attractive to butterflies (although cultivars are not typically as beneficial to wildlife as true native wildflower plants). 

I especially love using Verbena "Purple Homestead" in my pollinator gardens because I can always find it heavily discounted at Lowe's Garden Center and other nurseries. I can usually buy a large plant for only a dollar. These plants are so likely to be on nursery or garden center sales racks because they have a way of growing that can make it look like the plant is dried out or dead while it is perfectly alive. It is also heavily discounted because it is a trailing groundcover that grows quickly, so the plants look unruly in the garden center and don't sell very well.  

I currently have Verbena "Purple Homestead" in two locations in my yard. One plant is growing well as a groundcover at the base of my pollinator garden along the outside of the dog yard fence beside my fenced vegetable garden. That plant is growing beside Monarda and Echinacea plants for the butterflies. A second Verbena "Purple Homestead" plant is growing beautifully in a raised bed at the front of the front yard that I have filled with wildflowers. 

Both of these two plants bloomed at the end of April this year and they were some of the earliest plants to really bloom in my garden. I really appreciate plants that bloom early and attract pollinators at the beginning of the spring season. Despite blooming very early, Verbena "Purple Homestead" blooms throughout the summer so it's beautiful purple flowers are present for a very long time. 

I love that this plant grows well and spreads to become a trailing groundcover. It works really well as a groundcover. It also looks very beautiful in hanging baskets because of its trailing habit, but it doesn't survive the winter if kept in hanging baskets. I have grown it as an annual that way, but I prefer to let it grow in the ground as a hardy perrenial. 

The plant is very deer resistant. I love it's dark green crinkly foliage and it's gorgeous bright purple flowers. It does attract some butterflies, but the butterflies aren't as obsessed with it as they are with the later-blooming Echinacea flowers. Verbena "Purple Homestead" does very well in the summer heat in Virginia and it also does really well in very heavy rains. We have just had about a week of heavy rain here, and it's purple flowers are looking fabulous! 

(1) LSU Names Homestead Purple verbena a super plant