I would say the flowers are about in the middle blue-purple range. The pic I posted in the 7/9 standout thread seems right to me.

No self-seeding from last year's limited blooms.

Foliage typical. mid-green, see pic. Nothing at all like traditional fuzzy lamb's ear

Central Mass Garden Center, Lunenburg MA.

Divides easily. Tough. You know how sometimes when you divide a plant a little piece of root comes off that doesn't warrant being a "division". I saved them all! There was a little sulking for the first week or two on those little pieces in the heat of the summer, but they all came through. There were a few plants this year that were about a week or so behind schedule of the others. Those were probably the tiny rooted pieces.

I am the one who originally mentioned Stachys monieri Hummelo, FWIW.

The flowers are magenta and are about 28" tall over good green foliage. The stems are tall and upright with no leaves til the flowerhead which is vertical. It really stands out in the garden.

Too soon to tell if it will self-seed but I have grown the closely related Stachys grandiflora or macrantha for many years and there has never been a single seedling, unfortunately. This is much shorter but the flowers are much larger and even showier.

The foliage is a good healthy green and somewhat corrugated in texture--good all season. A fairly low-growing rosette for both of these showy Stachys.

I have seen it in several nurseries--Paisley's in Boxford and also Lake St, I think.

This is easy to grow in ordinary garden soil with lots of sun tho it will take a bit of shade. It does not like wet soil in winter.

These two Stachys species are absolutely nothing like lamb's ears except to the botanist. Take a look at Google Images.

Rainbow Mums and Perennials in Carlisle has it too........... Nice 2 gallon size plant.

I have it in my garden and love it. Very easy, well behaved clump. I have lots of blooms and they last a long time..... I find the aged spikes attractive, but you can cut them off if you want. Foliage is attractive even when not blooming, to me..... Haven't had it self seed.

and it will rebloom later in the fall if deadheaded. Well, mine did last year, but that may not have been typical given that it was blooming in a pot starting off and likely off schedule. Will see if the season is long enough.

Here's a pic of it in a setting. I will probably move it in front of the white or move some white or yellow in back of it.

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That's *really* nice. I don't recall seeing it anywhere for sale, but I'll have to start looking. I'm surprised to see it in shade, is that actually a mostly sunny spot?

I took that pic yesterday at 4:00ish and I was surprised that it was shady then. I thought it stayed sunny from about 11-5ish in that spot.

I happened to look at the tag last night and it did say sun,part-sun.

ALso, today I browsed around my other locations of Hummelo and some of them the flowers are more "done" than that patch. So maybe it can be said that it holds its flowers longer in not full sun??? That might be jumping to conclusions though. they are all still immature plants.

Also, worth noting is the pic above indicates that it didn't mind winter road salt.

Thanks for all the input!

I was just tromping around the "red tag" sale at Mahoneys and spotted these; recognized the name from this old thread and picked one up.

So, thanks!

this plant is a butterfly magnet. I was standing around this sunny spot the other day and there were 4-5 butterflies fluttering around. It was great!

I think this is year 3 from very very small divisions.

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