Chris Hogg wrote:
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

The tinyurls that you post here always take an age to open, i don't know
why.

I'm not sure it needed shortening anyway as the original is only:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbena_bonariensis