Balm-leaved Red Deadnettle

In the first lockdown of 2020 I ordered three sorts of  plant for the wild garden from Cottage Garden Plants, one of which was this Balm-leaved Red Deadnettle Lamium orvala. Despite the subsequent drought and high temperatures it has thrived in its shady corner, and has just come into flower.

Claire Austin describes it as 'A wonderful plant with spikes of large, velvety purplish pink hooded flowers, like those of the wild dead-nettle. Each whorl of flowers in divided by large, heart-shaped mid green leaves.' It is tough, long-lived and good for pollinators. 

It joins several other dead-nettles already present in the garden including our native White Dead-nettle Lamium album (which is very beautiful in its own right) the rampant and invasive garden form of Yellow Archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon subsp. argentatum and Spotted Dead-nettle Lamium maculatum, but is definitely the most majestic.