Prunella grandiflora 'Freelander Mixture' was awarded the 2006 Fleuroselect Gold Medal for being the first ever annually flowering Prunella grandiflora. This time round Prunella grandiflora 'Freelander Blue' joins the golden parade with a brand new trendy colour. Besides being compact and uniform, 'Freelander Blue' flowers early and in great profusion from May to October.

USE

Prunella grandiflora 'Freelander Blue' is a vigorous, hardy perennial that is excellent for the front of borders. It can be used for fine edgings in herb or vegetable gardens. 'Freelander Blue' is also appealing in flower beds and makes an excellent container choice. This variety serves as an excellent ground cover too. Its delightful spikes of tubular flowers will attract bees and butterflies making it both beneficial and beautiful in the garden. Sown from seed, 'Freelander Blue' will produce masses of flowers in the first year and come back year after year. This variety will thrive in many types of soil and can be exposed to various different climates.

MARKET VALUE

The fact that Prunella grandiflora 'Freelander Blue' starts to flower as early as May means that the series can be offered for sale a lot sooner in the season than the more common perennial Prunella grandiflora. This gorgeous, compact new variety is well adapted to sales in packs from April–May to September and is very well adapted for autumn sales serving crucial markets in Asia etc. The 'Freelander' series is a real value-for-money range; once planted, it will provide the consumer with a carpet of colour for many years to follow. Prunella grandiflora belongs to the Lamiaceae/Labiatae family. Within this genus, Prunella grandiflora is surrounded by a whole host of plants that are well known in horticulture such as Coleus, Lavandula, Thymus, Lamium, Salvia and Stachys. Of this list, Lavandula and Salvia are already well represented in the category 1st year flowering perennials. This has contributed to the rising popularity of these plants. 'Freelander' is ensuring that Prunella grandiflora takes its rightful place in this market.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Prunella grandiflora is native to Europe. The plant originates in mountainous areas such as the Alps and the Dolomites. In the wild the colour of the flowers is usually violet blue. It goes by the common name of 'self-heal' due to the fact that the foliage of this plant was used as a remedy to stop bleeding in the Middle Ages.