Plant profiles: Drought-tolerant plants: Verbena rigida
Verbena rigida is perfect for the informal landscape (Photo by Jane Gates)
Verbena rigida (Rigid Verbena, Sandpaper Verbena or Tuberous Vervain)
This is a colorful groundcover plant that blooms in rich purple for a long flowering season. The leaves are coarse and tough with a sandy texture and the plant creeps and crawls with underground runners. Flowers are clustered in groups and grow from six to eighteen inches high. The color can be a vibrant violet. The Verbena rigida likes full sun and well-drained, lean soil, but it isn’t fussy about soil type. It thrives in high heat and is frost tolerant to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. This is an ideal plant to cover hills, slopes and open expanses. It has an informal habit of growth that will make it attractive in a natural garden. It can become invasive where happy and rambles too much to work well in a formal, controlled landscape design. In the right location, the Verbena rigida is an excellent choice for a water-wise garden, although it won’t mind if it gets regular water either.
One Response to Plant profiles: Drought-tolerant plants: Verbena rigida
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A little warning might be appropriate when discussing this plant…
Verbena rigida is an excellent plant for those sandy dry areas that don’t get a drop of extra water, but is as unsuitable to the flower bed as bermuda grass would be.
Once planted, verbena is a chore to contain or to remove when other plants are desired, due to the turf-like effect of the stoloniferous growth habit.
On the other hand, it’s a continuous bloomer, and a butterfly magnet.