PENSTEMON 'RAVEN'

It's taken a while for Penstemon 'Raven' to push up a wonderful flower stem worth photographing.  I can see now why it is called Raven as the flowers are quite dark red.  It's a very healthy plant, just like the other Penstemons that I planted in spring and hopefully it will flower more prolifically next year. 

Penstemon 'Raven'

The label says that Penstemon 'Raven' (which has received the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit) is a semi-evergreen, frost-hardy perennial with neat, narrow, mid-green foliage and stems of dusky purple tubular flowers.  It grows best on sheltered, sunny sites in well-drained soil or compost.  It flowers summer to early autumn and achieves a height of 75cm (30in) and spread of 40cm (16in).