How small is small? Can you see it when you stand up?

I am growing these at the moment. They are somewhat different to most verbascums, staying a manageable 2.5-3feet. The colours range from purple, to pink and white (although you can often find single colour seed strains). They will flower this summer - June or thereabouts and often look well with delphinium, larkspur, Canterbury Bells. They don't have a very long bloom cycle, but are relaible, pretty and will live around 3-5 years in well-drained soil.

They are usually gone before frost - I cut the flower heads off as they, like all verbascum, will seed with abandon...plus mullein moth will make an appearance at some point (at least in my garden).

They are best treated as a biennial - sowing the seeds in late summer - either where you want them to grow or in 4inch pots. They germinate well and quickly, growing a decent little rosette before being cut back by the first winter frosts. They reliably return and grow away as soon as they go on the ground No need to wait till final frosts - I have been popping mine in for the last few weeks.

They grow fine here (though I've only established as plants) and sorta like Camps says, they're short lived perennials. Perhaps 3-5 years though.

Rob333, small could be anywhere from just germinated to small rosettes. :) thats why I was wanting to hear from those who had done it. If doing the “hunk of seedling” approach would work, I may just go that route since the seeds are so tiny it’s easy to sow thickly.

camp, thanks for all of the information and experience! Is there anything you haven’t grown? Lol. I guess I may start some later in the year for next Spring bloom. Do they need excessively good drainage over winter? Or will average do?

dbarron, I’m not too far from you, so hopefully they’ll do good here, too. ;)

I don't sow verbascums direct but in a 4inch pot. They germinate very quickly, growing from a tiny cotyledon to quite a healthy little plantlet in a month or so after germination - but still small enough to separate and transplant without causing too much of a setback. They can stay in the pots all winter (which can look alarming once the foliage dies back in November/December). Keeping them under cover prevents winter rainfall being an issue (although I don't get much of that here in the east) and although they are not terribly happy in wet clay, verbascums are nothing like as fussy as penstemons, say, which really hate wet winter soil.

They make enormous fat roots very rapidly indeed - and take up quite a bit of space - not certain that the HoS approach is the best in this case, but thinning out the seedlings will allow enough space for each rosette (although they are nothing like as huge and hoary as V.nigrum or v. bombyciferum say). Try a summer sowing of seed, as you would for foxgloves or forget-me-nots - they don't need chilling and will grow to a good size to overwinter, either under cover or outside. Just normal drainage will do - they hate to sit in standing water .

Yep, I have had a lot of seeds passing through my hands - many consigned to oblivion...but it so happens that this is a 'verbascum year' with a number of seedlings in production.