For the last three weeks Echium candicans (a.k.a. “Pride of Madeira”) has been blooming around town. Here’s a planting up at UCSD.

For eleven months it’s a somewhat open, woody shrub with rosettes of long, narrow leaves, of a soft grayed green color. Then in spring it puts up these outrageous cones of blue, lavender or magenta. The shape of the cones can be a little rounded towards the tip or fairly pointed. The plant can grow three to five or more feet tall, and twice as wide.

Many other species in the genus Echium are biennials. They put out a rosette of leaves one year, and bloom themselves to death the following year, often in a wild display of flowers. But candicans tends to be much more long-lived. So far it hasn’t made itself a big presence in residential gardens, maybe because of its largish size. But people are starting to plant it more in their gardens. It looks nice much of the year, puts on an insane display for a month, is well adapted to Mediterranean climates down to zone 9 and doesn’t require much water. What’s not to like? Okay, okay, it’s not the smallest spectacular plant out there.

I keep looking at plants and the one or two blank spots in the yard. Maybe one of these days I’ll make room for it.