Did someone say party?

Pink and red flowers on our verbena.

For all our Spanish challenged readers the title of today's post will make absolutely no sense. Probably won't make sense to Spanish speakers too but I like it so I'm sticking with it. Verbena, which means street party in Spanish, is a flowering plant from the Verbenaceae family. There are many species commonly called verbena which all share the characteristic of producing small five-petal flowers in bunches or clusters. Flowers come in many colors including red, pink, purple, blue or white. We have no idea which verbena species we have but I assume it's some type of Verbena X hybrida.

In prehistoric times when the world was in darkness (before the blog was started) we went crazy and bought (almost) every seed pack we could find. (Editors note: If it wasn't for Jessica Joel would have bough every seed pack including watermelons and pumpkins. Good thing Jessica can keep him straight.) One of these seed packs was for verbena, a truly beautiful flowering plant. We placed a few seeds in peat soil pellets and two plants emerged. Verbena germinates quickly in Puerto Rico's hot weather although I cannot recall exactly how long it took. After a few weeks we moved one plant to a mixed pot with tomato, chives and oregano while the other was placed by itself on a pot. The plant in the mixed pot received full sunlight (6+ hours a day) while the other received only 3-4 hours of sunlight in the early morning.

The verbena which we grew by itself before the whiteflies.

We learned a few things from this little "experiment". Verbena prefers full sun with a good draining soil. Boggy conditions will cause fungus to develop, most commonly powdery mildew. However, don't let the soil dry completely or the plant will wither. Too little sun will stress the plant and attract pests. Whiteflies in our case (Yes, those whiteflies). Also, the plant that received full sun has flowered multiple times while the other plant has yet to flower. This may be due to lack of sunlight or because the whiteflies were draining its strength. In any case full sun may have solved the problem. After the plant has flowered the deadheads must be cut to promote new flowers. Failing to perform this task will cause the plant to stop flowering.

Have you grown verbena in your garden? Let us know.