Echium species

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Alice

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Echium species
« on: January 20, 2013, 10:24:31 AM »
Alisdair, at your talk yesterday at the MGS headquarters you showed us a slide of a really nice Echium with pink flowers, that you had seen in one of the Australian gardens recently. What was the species?
« Last Edit: January 20, 2013, 06:44:30 PM by Alice »
Amateur gardener who has gardened in north London and now gardens part of the year on the Cycladic island of Paros. Conditions: coastal, windy, annual rainfall 350mm, temp 0-35 degrees C.

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Alisdair

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2013, 05:10:25 PM »
Alice, it was great to meet you, and put a face to the "Alice" we've all come to know on the forum!
It was Echium wildpretii - a lovely plant, though you have to look quite closely to see the flowers. Here it is, whole plant, then a close-up:
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

Alice

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2013, 06:46:40 PM »
That's the one, thank you Alisdair.
It was great to meet you too and your talk was very enjoyable.
Amateur gardener who has gardened in north London and now gardens part of the year on the Cycladic island of Paros. Conditions: coastal, windy, annual rainfall 350mm, temp 0-35 degrees C.

Trevor Australis

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2013, 10:52:26 PM »
Echium wilpretti is a biennial so it takes up quite a bit of room. It self-seeds well enough but I think it my cross fertilise with other species which are similar. I had seven plants of 'White Tower' but the second generation where very pale ice blue and not so close packed as the first generation. The third generation produced pale blue flowers and more open spires. The common shrubby Echium grows in many gardens here abouts so I wonder if the bees, which adore these towers of nectar, have been cross ppollinating them. tn
M Land. Arch., B. Sp. Ed. Teacher, traveller and usually climate compatible.

David Feix

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2013, 06:02:47 AM »
That close-up photo of Echium wildpretii doesn't do the plant justice, as it can be vividly colorful from a distance as seen in California gardens.  The various Echiums in the nursery trade all hybridize rather easily, and I wonder if the ones in the photo might not be a hybrid with E. pininiana, which does tend to have sparser blooms.
David Feix Landscape Design
Berkeley, California, USA

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Alisdair

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2013, 10:33:59 AM »
David, You could easily be right in suggesting hybrid origin of that plant, but another possibility is that the one in my picture may have just been starting to flower at the time. I've just had a look at the much higher resolution original, and I can see literally hundreds of flower buds not yet opened on the plant.
Either way, I clearly haven't done the species justice, but you can at least get an idea of the colour from the individual flowers.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

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KatG

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Re: Echium species
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2013, 06:00:25 PM »
I planted some Echium Candicans two years ago and they grew incredibly fast. Unfortunately the stems soon become woody and they were damaged by high winds last winter and never really recovered. Two nights ago the largest was totally decimated by gale force winds - the branches having been completely snapped off. All that's left is a stump where the main trunk was.
Katerina Georgi. Interior designer and Garden designer. Has lived, worked and gardened in the southern Peloponnese for the last 26 years. MGS member and head of MGS Peloponnese Branch.