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Verbena lilacina 'Paseo Rancho' – Pink Cedros Island Verbena. A tidy growing herbaceous subshrub with a mounding habit to 3 to 4 feet tall by 4 to 5 feet wide with mid-green delicately dissected foliage and clusters of sweetly fragrant light pink 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 blooming. 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 'Paseo Rancho' selection was introduced by Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (now called The California Botanic Garden). It was noted as being a larger plant than other Verbena lilacina in cultivation also with larger leaves and pinker colored flowers. We grew this plant from 2012 to 2014 and continue to grow the smaller and darker flowered cultivar 'De La Mina'.
The information displayed on this page about Verbena lilacina 'Paseo Rancho' is based on the research we have conducted about it in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.
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