Penstemon 2 litre pot – Mixed purple/pink shades

A lovely display of purple/black/light and dark pink too come from Penstemon, which to my mind are very underestimated as being a very stately perennial requiring nothing but admiration.  Penstemon  have a very long flowering season and fill endless gaps in the herbaceous border providing seemingly endless  colour in Summer through to late Autumn, bearing several spikes of large trumpet flowers.

Forming a large bushy upright clump, they can be divided every 3 years or so and cuttings are relatively easy .

You can grow penstemon in pots (but must be large) as well as directly into the garden.   The main advantage of these lovelies is the long length of time that they flower, later during the summer when food for the pollinators and colour for the gardener maybe a little sparse.

I would suggest leaving intact over winter and mulching well to protect the tops from frost and trim down once the new growth appears during the spring.  Here in Kent we can have frosts for some time and if you have pruned penstemon down into “Tidiness” in late Autumn the growth crown is exposed and they seem to weaken, cutting down also allows for sogginess to enter the crown and again Penstemon prefer to be left entire and a little messy until they wake up in the spring.