Common Name: verbena
Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Verbenaceae
Zone: 8 to 10
Height: 0.75 to 1.00 feet
Spread: 1.00 to 2.00 feet
Bloom Time: May to frost
Bloom Description: Light lavender blue
Sun: Full sun
Water: Medium
Maintenance: Low
Suggested Use: Annual
Flower: Showy
Attracts: Hummingbirds, Butterflies
Tolerate: Drought
Culture
Winter hardy to USDA Zones 8-10. In St. Louis, grow as an annual. Easily grown in average, medium moisture soils in full sun. Tolerates light shade, but best flowering is usually in full sun. Good heat and drought tolerance. Avoid overhead watering to the extent possible. ‘Sterling Star’ is a seed-grown cultivar. Start seed indoors 8-10 weeks before last frost date. In St. Louis, place plants outdoors in spring after last frost date. Deadhead spent flowers to encourage additional bloom. Cuttings may be taken in late summer and overwintered indoors, containers may also be overwintered and/or new plants may simply be grown from seed each spring.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Verbena is a genus of about 250 species of annuals, perennials and subshrubs from temperate and tropical areas of the Americas with a few from Southern Europe. They are grown for their showy flowers that are attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators.
Genus name comes from a Latin name used for some plants in religious ceremonies and also in medicine.
‘Sterling Star’ is a tender perennial that is grown in St. Louis as an annual. It is noted for its profuse bloom of light lavender-blue flowers, its spreading-trailing stems and its deeply cut foliage. When grown as an annual, it flowers freely from late spring to fall. Flowers appear in umbels (2” diameter). Although a hybrid plant, ‘Sterling Star’ is often commonly called moss verbena because of its similarity to Verbena tenuisecta. ‘Sterling Star’ is also very similar to ‘Imagination’ (V. ‘Imagination’) which has somewhat darker lavender-blue flowers.
Problems
No serious insect or disease problems.
Uses
Beds, borders, rock gardens, edging or annual ground cover. Containers, baskets and window boxes.