The Sweet Smell Of Almond Verbena

Everyone needs to grow almond verbena. The plant grows into a large shrub or a small tree covered with spikes of fragrant white flowers throughout the summer.

I fell in love with this plant several years ago after visiting Cindy Meredith’s Herb Cottage near Moravia. I asked her about the lovely scent that filled the air around her house and gardens. She pointed out the giant almond verbena tree growing behind her house. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to grow one.

Some time after that encounter, I planted an almond verbena in my yard. But the plant must have been sick, or maybe I over-watered it. For some reason or another, it withered and died in the first year.

This plant never left my mind, though. So this spring, I found an online supplier that sold almond verbena plants and bought three of them. They came in four-inch pots. I suppose they were grown from cuttings off a mature tree. Each one was just a stem and a few leaves. They looked quite tender when they arrived in the mail.

I kept them moist and placed them in dappled shade for a few days. I wasn’t sure when I should plant them. It was around April as I recall. Most trees and shrub grow better when you plant them in the fall. So I planted one in the ground and potted the other two up into larger containers.

At first, the one in the ground didn’t seem to grow at all. It may have even lost a few leaves. I was worried that perhaps the plant disagreed with my soil. Maybe that’s why the one I planted years ago died. The two in containers were bursting with new growth. The potted plants even flowered.

But then I started noticing new growth on the one in the ground. It, too, started to flower. And in the last month it has tripled in size. I suppose it has taken root.

I’m going to plant the two in containers sometime in the fall. It’ll be interesting to see how they all compare next summer.

This plant supposedly reaches 10-12 feet tall and three to four feet wide. I read that it needs full sun but can tolerate light shade. It’s a magnet for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Almond verbena’s scientific name is Aloysia virgata. It’s closely related to the herb lemon verbena ( Aloysia citrodora).

The “almond” comes from the description of its scent. I suppose it resembles the scene of “almond” candles. I don’t think of almonds when I smell the flowers, though. The scent is very sweet but rather hard to describe, in my opinion.