My top garden plants - Verbena bonariensis

This is my joint no. 1 with Dill. Verbena bonariensis has so much going for it - it isn't edible but that's a good thing in my opinion! It's brilliant because it's beautiful, it's so easy to grow and when it is established it will self seed all over the place. It's a short lived perennial - it'll last maybe 2-3 years but as it self seeds you can easily just pull out old clumps of it and start again. It is quite happy to be dug up as a young plant, left in a pot for a couple of weeks and then planted out elsewhere. I give them away to friends like this. It won't blow over in the wind and as I mentioned on the dill posting it's a 'see through' plant and grows tall but doesn't swamp anything. 

One of the benefits to wildlife is that the blue tits seem to love its seeds - I am unsure why because the seeds are tiny, but in autumn they are often to be seen perching on the end of the flower stalk pecking away at the gone to seed flower head. I've only seen blue tits do this because the stem can just about take their weight and it's quite amusing seeing blue tits bouncing around on them!

This clump on the right is just self seeded in the gravel

Mostly though, this plant's main raison d'etre here is that it is my no. 1 butterfly magnet, and the flower that the Hummingbird Hawkmoth loves best too. 

If you find butterflies boring then don't bother looking any further...... (but how could you not love them?!)

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

Red Admiral

Comma

Peacocks

In the photos on the right side bar that's a Small Copper on this plant as well.