Veronica spicata Blue Candles

Veronica spicata 'Blue Candles', also known as Spike Speedwell, is a vigorous perennial that forms a compact clump and boasts a long and charming flowering period in the summer. It produces long, upright spikes covered in small star-shaped, intense lavender-blue flowers. It had dark green foliage on a spreading clump of vegetation. It thrives in sunny flower beds, slopes, and rockeries, in well-drained, dry, or occasionally flooded limestone soil.

Spike Speedwell is a perennial plant in the Plantaginaceae family, formerly classified in the Scrophulariaceae family, mainly growing in the mountains, up to 2000 metres (6562 feet) above sea level and occasionally in the plains. It can be found growing in meadows, dry grasslands, rocky slopes, and at the edge of forests, usually on limestone soil.

The 'Blue Candles' variety is dense and vigorous, reaching 30 to 45 cm (12 to 18in) high for the foliage, 60 cm (24in) when flowering, spreading over a diameter of 30-40 m (98-131ft) from its powerful semi-woody crown. Its hairy stems are branched in the upper part and bear deciduous to semi-evergreen, ovate to linear leaves, with a finely toothed edge. In summer, from July to August and sometimes until September, it produces tiny star-shaped flowers tightly packed on dense, upright spikes. These flowers are attractive to bees and provide nectar. The plant self-seeds spontaneously in the garden, in light soil.

This 'Blue Candles' Spike Speedwell can be planted in any well-drained soil, even rocky and limestone, preferably in full sun. It is particularly suitable for a mountain garden with rocky soil. Although it prefers some moisture at its base, it tolerates drought quite well once established. This perennial will be very useful for underplanting shrub roses or in raised beds, on a slope, in a rockery, combined with echinaceas, stipas, red shrubby salvias, California poppies, or lavender. Its relatively flexible blue spikes add height and colour to a low-growing mass of plants like aubrietas, wall bellflowers, or cerastiums. Spike Speedwell can also be showcased as a specimen plant. Its flowers are beautiful in summer bouquets.