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Verbena lilacina 'De La Mina' (Purple Cedros Island Verbena) - A tidy growing evergreen herbaceous subshrub with a mounding habit to 18 to 24 inches tall by 2 to 3 feet wide with mid-green delicately dissected foliage and clusters of sweetly fragrant dark purple, star-shaped flowers with purple stamens. This plant can bloom most of the year with a peak in spring and summer and the flowers rise up on stalks 8 inches to hover above the foliage.
Plant in full to part sun. It has low water needs and can go extended periods without any water but a monthly irrigation cycle from late spring through the first rains of fall keeps this plant looking lush with continuous flowering. Cold hardy to 25° F. This great plant works well as a container specimen or planted in dry borders mixed with other mediterranean climate plants and is great for attracting bees and butterflies to the garden.
Verbena lilacina comes from Cedros Island and the adjacent Baja California coast. Though not native to California within it U.S. borders, the northern Pacific Ocean islands off Baja California and the adjacent coastline have a mediterranean climate and so are considered to be part of the California floristic province, so plants of this area are often treated as "California Natives". The name for the genus comes from the Latin word for sacred boughs of plants made up of olive, myrtle and other plants (possibly Vebena) and the specific epithet is Latin meaning "lilac in color" in reference to the typical flower color of the species.
The 'De La Mina' cultivar is a plant selected in 1996 by Carol Bornstein, then Director of Horticulture at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, in the Canyon de la Mina at the northern end of Cedros Island, an island off the west coast of Baja California and it was introduced into the nursery trade in 1998. This selection differs from previous introductions of the species by having much deeper colored flowers. We have sold this plant since 1999 and in the past also grew the larger pink flowered cultivar 'Paseo Rancho' that Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (now California Botanic Garden) Introduced, but prefer the darker and smaller cultivar 'De La Mina'. More information on this plant can be found on the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden's Verbena lilacina 'De La Mina' Plant Introduction Page.
This information about Verbena lilacina 'De La Mina' displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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