# Common name: Speedwell “Goodness Grows”

# Botanical name: Veronica spicata “Goodness Grows”

# What it is: A short, sun-loving perennial flower that puts out spiky violet-blue flowers for most of the summer. Attracts butterflies and bees.

# Size: Even with the flower spikes, it’s only about a foot tall. Spreads about 2 feet.

# Where to use: Makes a nice front-of-the-border or edging perennial in any sunny, well-drained spot. Compact and long-blooming enough to merit use in foundation plantings. Also a good mailbox or curbside plant. Best in full sun.

# Care: Scatter a high-phosphorus, granular, organic fertilizer such as Flower Tone or Bulb Tone over the bed in spring. Snip off spent flower stalks after flowers brown out to keep the plant neat and to encourage repeat blooms. Cut whole plant to ground after frost kills foliage in fall or late winter. Divide in early spring if cluster grows beyond where you want it. Needs water only in bad droughts. Spraying seldom, if ever, needed.

# Great partner: Contrasts nicely with gold-leafed shrubs, such as smokebush “Golden Spirit,” elderberry “Sutherland Gold,” barberry “Bonanza Gold” or spirea “Mellow Yellow.”