Growing Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’

If you’re not already growing this popular perennial, I’m hoping I can convince you to add it to your garden by the end of this post. I mean, look at these amazing flowers! And guess what, it’s not too difficult to grow from seed so you can get a lot of plants for under $10. How’s that for a win-win?

Yup, the ‘Southern Charm’ blend has creamy, peachy-ivory toned flowers as well yummy pinky-lavendery-plummy ones, too.

Also, if you cut the first round of flowers down to the base after they’re finished flowering you’ll get a second flush later in the summer that can last into early autumn.

It’s important to remember that Verbascum prefer a lean, sandy soil and lots of sun. For this former garden of ours, I first laid down a layer of small stones and then mixed in some gritty sand to this bed since our native soil is heavy clay. These conditions also benefited the bearded iris which grew shoulder to shoulder with the Verbascum.

I purchased my seeds from Swallowtail Garden Seeds which arrive in pelleted form. (Let me just state also that this is not a sponsored post or anything I just really like that seed company.) Anyways, I started them in early spring under cover–I used a coldframe but a greenhouse is also ideal–and I used a warming mat so the soil was brought up to around 70 degrees F. At first the seedlings seemed slow to start but they did eventually flower the first year and in subsequent years they looked even better. Another wonderful variety of Verbascum is one called ‘Wedding Candles’ that we had to leave behind in our North Carolina garden but someday I hope to find another because you can never have too many Verbascum in your garden!