Nettle-leaved mullein
Verbascum chaixii ·
Slender spires densely packed with small flowers, yellow or white, each with a mauve-purple eye, rise from a flat rosette of leaves in summer.
- Size
- 3 ft tall, 18 in wide
- Zones
- 5 to 8
- Light
- Full sun
- Flowers
- Mid June to early August
- Pets
- Not checked
- Job in a bed
- Accent
A bed built around nettle-leaved mullein
The planner designed this bed around nettle-leaved mullein when this page was made: a 12 × 6 ft (3.7 × 1.8 m) cottage garden in zone 6, full sun. It chose the other plants from the 715 that suit those conditions and its dry soil, and says below why nettle-leaved mullein stands where it does.
The plants
- 1 Nettle-leaved mullein × 3, yellow
- 2 Common thyme × 8, lavender
- 3 Heath aster 'Snow Flurry' × 4, white
- 4 False sunflower 'Summer Nights' × 3, yellow
- 5 Silver sage × 1, silver leaves
- 6 Sideoats grama × 5, purple
- 7 Blue allium × 12, blue
- 8 Grecian windflower × 12, pink
Why this plant
- The only spires. The others are dense clusters, daisies, airy sprays and others. Shape reads at a distance, where colours blur.
Why here
- Anchors a back corner. At 3 ft it is one of the taller plants here, and the tallest close the ends of the bed, where they stand in front of nothing.
- A step in the back row. Next to sideoats grama (2½ ft): no two neighbours there are the same height, so the back steps up and down like a skyline.
- 3 plants in one clump. A single spire is too slight to hold a place alone, so here the accent is a clump.
Why now
- In flower for 8 weeks. From mid June to early August.
- Part of the bed's peak. With common thyme, false sunflower 'Summer Nights' and blue allium in late June: 4 kinds at once. No week has more.
Planned as a cottage garden: 24 of the 24 plants (100%), bulbs aside, stand alone or in groups of no more than five, small enough for the kinds to mingle. The back corners are held by false sunflower 'Summer Nights' and nettle-leaved mullein, the tallest plants on the plan. The bed is balanced: the left half carries 51% of the visual weight and the right half 49%.
The planner's own design check: 12 Excellent, 5 Good. It flags one thing to watch: Nothing on this plan is highly poisonous or an aggressive spreader.
Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.
Where nettle-leaved mullein goes in a border
At 3 ft it belongs in the middle of a bed. In the planner's ten height classes it is medium tall (2½ to 3 ft).
Its job: accent. An upright plant used singly, like a punctuation mark, and repeated at intervals to give the bed rhythm.
A true perennial mullein, where most are biennial. The spires are narrow and upright; scatter them through low mounds of catmint and salvia.
- Narrow verticals in dry soil
- Gravel gardens
- Cottage gardens
What to plant with nettle-leaved mullein
Plants recorded as good partners for it, and what each pairing does:
- Salvia 'May Night': purple against yellow, opposite each other on the colour wheel, if you choose those colours, in flower together for five weeks.
- Catmint 'Walker's Low': in flower together for eight weeks, from mid June; a low mound at the foot of its spires; happy in the same dry soil.
- Yarrow 'Moonshine': in flower together for eight weeks, from mid June; happy in the same dry soil.
Questions about nettle-leaved mullein
Does nettle-leaved mullein need sun or shade?
Nettle-leaved mullein grows in full sun (6 or more hours of direct sun a day).
It wants dry, sharply drained soil, on the lean side, with no feeding, and little watering once settled.
What zones does nettle-leaved mullein grow in?
USDA zones 5 to 8. It is hardy to zone 5, which means it survives winter nights down to about −10 °F (−23 °C).
Above zone 8 it struggles: the zones measure winter cold, but a plant's top zone usually means the summers are too hot or the winters too mild for it to rest.
Gardening in Canada? Use the USDA zone for your town: Canada's own zone map uses different numbers.
When does nettle-leaved mullein flower in my zone?
In zone 5 it flowers mid June to early August. As a summer flower it moves about half a week for every zone: earlier where it is warmer.
| Zone 5 | Mid June to early August |
|---|---|
| Zone 6 | Mid June to early August |
| Zone 7 | Early June to late July |
| Zone 8 | Early June to late July |
Worked out from Hopkins' bioclimatic law: spring arrives about four days later for each degree of latitude north, and one zone is roughly two degrees. A warm spring or a cold one moves any garden two weeks either way.
How far apart should nettle-leaved mullein be planted?
18 in (45 cm) apart, from the middle of one plant to the middle of the next. That is about its full width, so each plant keeps its own outline.
It grows 3 ft (90 cm) tall. Give it the full distance from anything taller, or it will lean out towards the light.
How many nettle-leaved mullein plants do I need?
At 18 in apart, set out in staggered rows:
- 5 to fill 10 square feet (about 1 m²)
- 7 for a single row 10 ft (3 m) long
- 17 to fill a 4 × 8 ft bed on its own
In a mixed border, plant it as one at a time, repeated along the bed at intervals; a slender one reads better as a clump of three.
In the bed above, the planner used three in one group.
Will nettle-leaved mullein spread?
It seeds itself about; the risk of it taking over is moderate. Self-seeds freely. Remove the spent flowers to limit seedlings.
What flowers after nettle-leaved mullein?
Nettle-leaved mullein is over by early August. These start as it finishes and carry the same spot on, so it never goes flat:
- Lilyturf: from early August to mid September, 16 in tall, to stand in front of it and cover its fading stems.
- Black-eyed Susan 'Goldsturm': from late July to late September, 2 ft tall, to stand in front of it and cover its fading stems.
- Dwarf fountain grass 'Hameln': from late July to mid September, 2½ ft tall.
What does nettle-leaved mullein look like in winter?
Nettle-leaved mullein holds some of its leaves into winter, more in a mild year or a sheltered spot, and they look tired by March. Cut the old ones off as new growth starts.
More Verbascum
- Mullein 'Southern Charm' Verbascum 'Southern Charm'
In these guides
Every fact on record
- Type
- Perennial
- Size
- 3 ft (90 cm) tall, 18 in (45 cm) wide
- Plant
- 18 in (45 cm) apart
- Height class
- Medium tall (2½ to 3 ft)
- Place in the bed
- Middle
- Flowers
- Mid June to early August; upright spires; yellow, white
- Leaves
- Medium texture, semi-evergreen; green
- Shape
- Upright, self-seeding
- Hardy in
- USDA zones 5 to 8
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil
- Lean, dry and sharply drained
- Water
- Low
- Feeding
- None needed
Not yet checked against an outside reference: its figures rest on general horticultural knowledge. Flowering times are for zone 5: later in colder zones, earlier in warmer ones. Toxicity and spread information is a general gardening guide, not veterinary or medical advice, and invasive status varies by region. If a person or pet eats a plant, contact poison control or a vet. Check your local invasive species list before planting anything with a spread warning.