In article ,
says...

On Sat, 13 Aug 2016 20:35:14 +0200, Clara5
wrote:


Hello
I planted some little Verbena bonariensis plants in about May and they
grew nicely how I've always seen them - thin dull green stems and sparse
leaves that don't catch the eye and pretty pink flowerheads at the top,
here supposed to be among ornamental grasses. But in the last three
weeks or so, a sort of giant version of them has pushed up in the middle
of each plant, much lighter and brighter green, stems and leaves about
four times the size and the same little heads of little flowers
appearing at the top. They won't look at all good among the grasses when
those grow, and in fact they don't look that good anyway because the
flowers are so small in comparison! I asked a neighbour who is a
gardener what the heck was going on and he said they were just second
year stems and my plants are doing really well. But this isn't the
typical V. bonariensis effect that I wanted and I can't see any
photographs of it looking like that online! Does anyone have any
suggestions, please?
Thanks
Clara5

You don't say how tall you expected it to grow, but in my garden it
grows typically to between five and six feet, and that's how I've seen
it elsewhere. It also seeds itself around, with vigour. OK if you're
happy with that, but a bit of a nuisance if you don't. They keep
popping up in my garden years after I removed the original plant.
http://tinyurl.com/jksmmo4

Ditto. Mine have heavily colonised a gravel area and are shoulder
height at the moment, in full flower. It's a jungle but gorgeous. I pull
out hundreds of them at the end of summer and they come back even
thicker the next year. If I want some to grow elsewhere I just scatter
the flower heads as they go to seed. (Grown in rich deep soil they get
even bigger but tend to blow over in gales)

vb flowers are purple not pink so I'm wondering if she could have
the wrong name for some other plant.

Janet