Sunday, November 29, 2020

Obey My Mystery Plant

A big "Thank you" to all those who helped me to identify a mystery plant I had planted last fall and lost the tag for.  I believe I have a positive ID.


It's blooming a little out of season, but I now believe this is an obedient plant,  Physostegia virginiana.
  It's interesting that a couple of my readers tried to identify this through an application and one of the results was "snapdragon". The flowers are snapdragon like, but this does have a square stem like a mint, and, in fact, it is related to mint.  And yes, it will spread.  It's nowhere near five feet tall, which it should be, but, then again, I think it was stunted by its location.

Thank you to my guest photographer's sister, whose expertise came through once again. 

The good news is, deer don't like it but bees and hummingbirds do.

Incidentally, you don't have to obey the plant.  It's called "obedient plant" because you can push flowers to new positions and the flower will stay where it was pushed.

Fun for next year? 

6 comments:

  1. May we all have the power of this little plant. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

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  2. Well, lucky you! I've tried growing it from seed and never got anything to survive once up.

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  3. Hi Alana - I wrote about this plant back in October 2018 - when I came across it in Butchart Gardens, Victoria on Vancouver Island ... I too was bemused by it ... so glad you've established the name of your pretty flowering plant at this time of year ... enjoy - Hilary

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  4. Glad you were able to identify it. Now you know what to do with it.

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  5. Didn't you want to keep some mystery in your life?

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