This nine foot high perennial plant has a striking spire of yellow flowers. This variety has several smaller spikes in this case an impressive fourteen at the last count and still growing. This is a Verbascum hybrida and I also have a white which is less robust but still stately.

• The leaves are hairy and can cause skin irritation
• In the wild ‘Mulliens’ produce prodigious volumes of seed as do the hybrids. I treat good specimens as biennial although they are perennial as they are easy to grow from seed.
• Flowers do not open evenly up the flowering spike but have colour for many weeks in summer. If dead headed there will often be a second flush later.
• Mulliens like sun and space but are not fussy about soil conditions
• Try grow a variety with multiple stems. Some have only one spike.

Design Tips

• Other varieties flower earlier and in a more compact manner  with flowers of red, pinks and creams.
• Try the cream V. Gainsborough which has the AGM or the purple  V. phoenicieum Violleta
• The grey to silvery leaves create a pleasant colour contrast for smaller plants
• The height is useful in the middle of borders with stronger subject being visible seen through the spikes.
• Despite the size and ease with which they grow they are still startling specimens that are a bit unusual