Soft peach but with strong copper highlights and a central purple stain, 'Helen Johnson' is an astonishingly sumptuous
Verbascum
. Its matching purple filaments and brick-orange anthers echo the flower's complex sheen. Pure indulgence. And with color that keeps coming even after it slips away into soft mauve.
It's a short-lived perennial -- short lives are the hallmark of the genus
Verbascum
. Some species are annual, others perennial, but primarily they tend to be biennial (read: dead after bloom). In the case of the hybrids (which, in addition to 'Helen,' include such beauties as the double-clotted 'Cotswold Cream' and the purple-eyed 'Cotswold Queen'), three years may qualify as a full life.
Fortunately, these sterile hybrids can be rooted from cuttings, and the biennial species, if happy, self-seed. Quite a few
Verbascum
are worth growing for foliage alone, including
V. bombyciferum
, with rosettes so densely white and woolly that they make lamb's ears look sheared. Leaves up to 18 inches long show almost no trace of gray in youth. By year two, the effect is somewhat less pristine but just as arresting when the plants send up a 4- to 6-foot cotton-covered spike (the yellow flowers that follow are a pleasant enough end to the show).
The other well-known foliar wonder is
V. olympicum
, with white and woolly basal rosettes reaching 3 feet across. In flower, it's the very definition of a candelabra, with white branching stems holding flower panicles 2 to 3 feet long. The flowers are bright yellow with prominent white stamens; if removed, there's a chance it'll flower again in fall.
A third, lesser-known species,
V. wiedemannianum
, flowers in shades of salmon through violet and reportedly even indigo blue -- a good choice if you're prejudiced against yellow mulleins and think of them as roadside weeds (the real culprit is
V. thapsus
, an incredibly utilitarian plant but ratty all the same). The violet-flowered species has huge, tapered leaves covered in a cobweb of gray-white hairs and flowering stalks from 2 to 4 feet high.
Lastly, a
Verbascum
rivaled only by 'Helen,'
V. chaixii
'Album': foot-high candles dripping in luxurious white flowers made striking by warm violet eyes. Unlike her coppery cousin, 'Album' makes the most of her wild oats; leave her be, and watch her sow.
COMMON NAME: Mullein
TYPE: June/July blooming biennial or short-lived perennial
BASIC NEEDS: Full sun, fast drainage
WORST ENEMY: Woodland wet
BEST ADVICE: Consider these chance plants, and let the biennials sow where they may
HOT TIP: To maintain your supply of 'Helen Johnson,' take early spring root cuttings about a pencil's thickness and 2 inches long (make sure you differentiate the two cuts so you can tell the bottom of your root from top). Grow in peat and perlite.
MORE MULLEIN
Would you believe woody subshrubs?
V. dumulosum
and
V.
'Letitia' are both dense, rounded and less than a foot high. They have gray, felted leaves, clear yellow flowers and make great rock garden plants.
V.
'Golden Wings' is similar in shape and habit but slightly larger (to 18 inches), with orange buds opening to yellow flowers. All need fast drainage.
– Ketzel Levine
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