This must be the year for my prima donna plants to finally decide to bloom. First it was the first bloom for me of the Agave attenuata over the winter. Now it’s this echium’s turn.
This is Echium wildpretii, which has gone from five feet tall two weeks ago to over seven and a half feet.
It’s also known by various common names, including tower of jewels, red bugloss, and–in Spanish–tajinaste. “Tajinaste”: what a gorgeous sounding name, way more musical than bugloss or “tower of jewels,” which sounds a little square to me, like a plant name from a 1927 seed catalog. Tajinaste is endemic to one Atlantic island, Tenirife, off the northern African coast.
This echium species is described as a biennial. Many plants described that way will put up leaves the first year and then bloom the second year from seed, after which the plants produce huge amounts of seed and then die.
Although it’s been known to flower in the second year, this plant’s usual interpretation of the term takes “biennual” literally as “two years,” keeping you waiting that long from sowing to flowering. And there’s one plant in the front yard that looks like it’s going to be taking an additional year. Biennial? I think not.
Still, worth the wait, don’t you think?
The plant grows in spirals. Here you can see the spiraling new flowers.
During the two years you wait for it to bloom, you get to look at an attractive mound of lance-shaped coarse gray leaves, usually eighteen inches to twice that across during its second growing season. When nature withholds flowers you can always look at and photograph leaves. So here’s some of my little crop of Echium wildpretii plant photos.
As you can see it’s an attractive plant even when out of bloom. It has low water requirements and looks clean until its final, spectacular exit. After a few months it turns from a big dramatic plant into a big dramatic dead plant with tendencies to topple even before its deep tap root decays.
Its reputation is that it’ll send seeds everywhere at that point, so this might not be the best plant if you live near the edge of a dry natural area. A related echium, pride of Madeira, (E. candicans) has established itself as a pest in some coastal areas of Southern California. I’ll get to see how bad it really is after these plants finally give out later this summer. I’ll worry about that later, but for now I’ll sit back and enjoy the plant.
I LOVE this plant! I’m growing a few this year and actually it would be fine with me if it never bloomed, I love the foliage. However I do like the idea of seeds everywhere! I’m so bad at identifying seedlings though that I’d probably end up pulling them out anyway. Your pictures are gorgeous!
I typed a ridiculously long comment and submitted it and *poof* it disappeared. I seem to be having commenting issues on many blogs these days. So…I want to try and say again…great post with lovely pictures! I am growing several of this Echium this year and while seeds would be nice I kind of hope it doesn’t flower…because I love the foliage!
A pinker, taller, prettier leaved cousin of my Paterson’s Curse. I have to catch the seedlings as soon I can see what they are. Wonder if you will have a problem? Pride of Madeira is a cultivated garden plant in South Africa. Bit wary of it.
Amazing plant, though I’m not sure I’d want 500 of them (I’ve even refrained from planting the native Oenothera for fear it will take over)
thanks for the pictures!
Very cool. I’ve always wanted to plant one, but never quite found the right space. Seems like a really fun plant to watch it do its thing.
wow, what a show! Your photos are great btw. I think you’d have to have quite a landscape to be able to feature this well. It’s quite a plant!
Loree, thanks for your comments. You can see I finally figured out the problem with your notes not showing up. Still, I might be needing to fish them out of spam manually until there’s a new version of the filter. I know exactly what you mean about some plants that you just wish wouldn’t bother to flower, and I’ve been planning a post about that sometime.
EE, with your climate being so much like mine I can see how the pride of Madeira could turn into a weed. I sometimes volunteer at a local native plant garden where baby echium weeds keeps sprouting.
TM, between the gophers and my forgetting to watering them, my original 24 or so seedlings dwindled to the 3 plants I have now. So it might not be awful if this plant self-sows a bit. I’m awfully attracted to our local Oenothera elata, but I’ve been a tad wary of it myself.
Ryan, plants like these are really tricky to integrate into a landscape. They don’t just stay there in a pretty little mound. And then they croak after 3 years.
Wendy, I’m still figuring out how to use this plant. It’s great as a special extravagant exhibit when it blooms, but it just suddenly dwarfs all its neighbors.
Wow. This is a real stunner (and your images are beautiful). I can see where you wanted to include it in your garden (and your ‘gag’ in your next post made me laugh!) – anyway, I’ve given up on a perfect garden, and instead have turned it into a place where I enjoy watching things grow and bloom (without all the expectation). Those spiraling flowers – what fun. Can I (secretly) hope that it reseeds everyone so that we can see it bloom again in years to come?