Veronica 'Goodness Grows'

What’s blooming in the area behind the walls and fences: Hybrid tea roses, tall yucca, lilies, Spanish broom, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, trumpet creeper, Russian sage, purple phlox, Shasta daisies, Sensation cosmos, zinnia, purple coneflower, alfalfa; small and large yellow flowers, probably cucumbers and pumpkins or squash.

Outside the fences: Tamarix, Apache plume, four-winged saltbush, winterfat, Queen Anne’s lace, fern-leaf and leather-leaf globemallows, velvetweed, scarlet beeblossom, white and yellow evening primroses, nits and lice, bindweed, datura, bush morning glory, stickleaf, Dutch, white prairie, and white sweet clovers, buffalo gourd, goat’s head, alfilerillo, silver-leaf nightshade, pigweed, Russian thistle, goat’s beard, hawkweed, paper flower, spiny lettuce, horseweed, strap-leaf and golden hairy asters, áñil del muerto, one native sunflower.

In my yard looking north: Miniature roses, golden spur columbine, last year’s snapdragon, Harweig evening primrose, butterfly weed, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Parker’s Gold yarrow, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, orange coneflower; bud on blackberry lily.

Looking east: Dr. Huey and floribunda roses, hollyhock, winecup, sidalcea, Jupiter’s beard, baby’s breath, bouncing Bess, coral beardtongue, sea pink, large-leaf soapwort, Maltese cross, pink salvia, pink evening primrose, Saint John’s wort, reseeded morning glory; buds on garlic chives, Autumn Joy sedum and cut-leaf coneflower.

Looking south: Blaze and rugosa roses, Illinois bundle flower, sweet peas.

Looking west: Caryopteris, catmint, lady bells, blue speedwell, spurge, blue flax, sea lavender; buds on Mönch asters.

Bedding plants: Moss rose, snapdragon, nicotiana, sweet alyssum.

Inside: Aptenia, zonal geraniums, asparagus fern.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbird on coral beardtongue, goldfinches on chocolate flower, geckos, cabbage butterfly, hummingbird moth on bouncing Bess, large bees on catmint, grasshoppers, black harvester and small red ants; hear crickets.

Weather: Another week of broken promises with polluted air, high temperatures and lying clouds that leave no rain; last rain 07/08/09; 14:14 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: The rarest thing of all is a plant that grows as advertised.

Take speedwells. Back when I was buying plants in Michigan, Wayside Gardens said they’re "among the most useful of hardy perennials. By judicious selection, you can have flowers from June through September. The neat, compact plants are beautiful, even when not in bloom."

Lamb Nurseries called them "underrated" and of "outstanding importance" before adding they "bloom with such abandon that we rank them among the choicest of low-growing plants."

Well naturally I gave them a try, and nothing happened. Most of the plants didn’t survive, and those that did only filled space.

I’m not sure now why I ordered some plants for here in 1998, other than desperation to find something blue. I no longer took comments like those from White Flower Farm that Goodness Grows was "the best of the lot" that "blooms forever." I just knew it wasn’t the same cultivar I’d tried before.

The next two summers the young plants bloomed from late June until late July, then either didn’t flower or only put up a few short spikes for a few weeks. This year, the long, narrow flowers started opening at the base June 20, and only now are the last flowers appearing at the top of spikes that have lengthened to 4" on stalks up to 11" tall.

They haven’t reached the size promised by growers, a foot or more in height above mats that spread 18", but this is northern New Mexico. The rhizomatous roots have crept along the soaker hose on the west side of the house as far as there’s enough water, but no more than 3" on either side.

The little plant does have its wayward side. Marc Richardson and Rick Berry discovered it growing in a trial garden at their nursery in Lexington, Georgia. Michael Farrow has since patented a pink variety he found in 2003 in his Holly Hill Farms bed in Earlville, Maryland.

The Missouri Botanical Garden believes Goodness Grows is a natural cross between Veronica alpina 'Alba' and Veronica spicata that combines the compact size of the one with the tall racemes of the other.

Since no spicata variety ever grew for me, I think the perennial took its adaptability from the alpine parent. This past winter we had rain in late January that lingered as ice until the first of March. I suspect something in those unusual conditions is responsible for the number and size of this year’s spikes.

Dirk Albach has been particularly interested in the relationship between the great glaciers and the eight alpine Veronicas within the figwort family and found variation within this species existed in the European Alps and that adaptions to conditions had occurred multiple times. He confirmed the suspicion that alpine plants have larger genomes that somehow translate into better "growth by cell division conducted in the preceding favourable season and cell expansion early in the season at low temperatures."

Why a glacial plant would survive in an arid mountain valley in New Mexico is probably related to its adaptability. In central Scotland it grows near the snow line on the sides of mountains where "reflected heat is greatest." However, when it was taken to the 800' piedmont of Georgia it crossed with a spicata.

I suspect that if our weather returns to what passes for normal, the flowers will be fewer next summer but the dark, elliptical leaves will continue to stop grass and other weeds from emerging. That ability alone is rare in a groundcover, and worth having.

Notes:
Albach, Dirk C. and J. Greilhuber. "Genome Size Variation and Evolution in Veronica," Annals of Botany 94:897-911:2004.

_____, P. Schönswetter, and A. Tribsch. "Comparative Phylogeography of the Veronica alpina Complex in Europe and North America," Molecular Ecology 15:3269-86:2006.

Brewster, David and Richard R. Yeo. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, Volume 9, 1999.

Farrow, Michael. Patent application for ‘Tickled Pink,’ published 24 November 2005.18

Goodness Grows, Inc. Website.

Lamb Nurseries. Catalog, 1986.

Missouri Botanical Garden. "Veronica 'Goodness Grows'," Plant Finder website.

Wayside Gardens. Catalog, spring 1986.

White Flower Farm. Website.

Photograph: Veronica ‘Goodness Grows’ with purple coneflower leaf, 11 July 2010.