Verbascum 'Blue Lagoon', mid May. Bred by Charles Valin at Thompson & Morgan. ?It actually came about as a result of trying to breed a red verbascum. Red shades usually come from crosses between a yellow plant and a dark violet flowered plant. In 2006 I started growing many species to find one with the deepest possible violet colouring and among those I tried a species native to Armenia and Turkey and selected some of the darkest plants. In 2008 I selected one plant bearing violet flowers with a slight blue hue. In 2009 I expected its offspring to produce only violet flowers but one seedling was an extraordinary Meconopsis blue, a rare colour in flowers, let alone in verbascums!"