Advice on verbena bonariensis

[bumblingbovine49]

Hi

Someone gave me a small cutting of this in June this year in a tiny plastic pot. It grew on my windowsill and I.put it in a bigger pot (not about 20 cm on) later in the summer. It has a few flowers now and has been outside until now. I am not sure if it should stay inside or outside over the winter. I don't have a greenhouse. I have a very small garden but I had three ornamental thistles at the back of one of the two flower beds that died this summer and I thought this verbena might be a good thing to replace them in the bare patch they left ( ie both tall and purple ). Can I plant it out in the bed in the garden now or should I do it some other time. Or should I leave it in the pot and if so do I bring it inside for the winter?

Mine are planted in the flower bed. It gives them more protection rather than in a pot.
Plant them out now, leave the flower spikes on, the seeds spread freely and they look lovely dotted around.
The plants die back and disappear over the winter, but pop up again in spring.

Thanks for the advice and for letting me know that they die back in winter (I am very new to gardening so might have thought they had died)

I will transfer it to the flower bed this weekend and hope for the best

I'm leaving mine outside, planted in the ground. I'm hoping the survive (apparently leaving the flower heads on helps to protect them). Also I believe they self seed pretty freely so there may be some seedlings to replace any plants that die.

My mum gave me a couple of plants out of her garden years ago, and they have spread throughout my front garden. Love them. Although I am forever pulling up seedlings out of the gravel drive.

Agree with planting it out now, leaving it to self seed and seeing what happens.

I have planted mine in our flower bed. It grows more better because I think their roots can breath more properly.

Verbena are great. Stick it in the ground now, they like well drained soil (and drives and paths etc) and will self seed happily. They go a bit woody over winter, leave the seed heads for the birds, and cut back all stems to about 4 or 6 inches in March ish.

My experience of vb is that it takes bloody ages for new growth to appear in the spring so don't assume it has died if you don't see anything for a while - give it chance to come back!

I bought a little one about 8 years ago from the garden centre ICU for plants. It was 50p and has brought me so much joy in the garden.

If I want a new plant in early summer I go round the garden and carefully dig out the little seedlings then plant them all together in one spot and I get a glorious plant in mid summer. The one by my front door grew to over 4 feet this summer. Glorious.