I started my nursery/horticulture career in the spring of 1980 at Desert Trees Nursery northwest of Tucson. It was and still is a wholesale nursery that grows and sells to folks in the trade. The popular verbenas we grew back then were South American cultivars with names like Peruvian Red or Trailing Bubblegum…short-lived ornamentals…ugh. We also grew a weedy verbena called Verbena tenuisecta and that’s still in the trade, but as Glandularia pulchella. Pretty plant, but again, a native to SA. I think it was Mountain States Nursery out of Phoenix that was growing and selling the native Goodding verbena back in those days AND that’s who Ms. Mesquitey and I were contract growing 5,000 verbenas for a dozen years later.
Goodding verbena (Glandularia gooddingii) is a beautiful native verbena with a sweet wild fragrance. Stick your nose in the flowers and you’ll catch yourself saying, “Oh my, the desert is beautiful.” Yeah, it is.
The photos are mine of the little plants I came across by our barn…scruffy and small, but still with a floral fragrance to die for.
