Echiums

@longk lets hope the rain and cold weather today will wash them out!

 

Had a quick look at their yearly weather, the rainfall looks kind of comparable but the temperature rarely goes below 4 degrees. Thats a toughie.... Unless I keep all my E's in the house for winter... I am really going to solve this mystery I smell a good horticultural experiment here!
need to work on my plan to convince my hubby dearest... May be I should not mention it to him until December...

 

Ive just been and checked mine(pink fountain i think), gave them tidy up & repotted them,i will leave them in the potting shed for now as it feels very damp in my greenhouse..

My snowtower will be on its 3rd yr this yr if it makes it past this miserable wet weather..

 

I've got a few planted out and a few under glass. When I've grown them before it was February that finished them off. But the weather has been very unusual this winter. The outside ones are looking fine so far.

I'm a bit worried about this tap root business. I think I'd get the best results from direct sowing or transplanting into the garden when they are very small but there never seems to be room at the right time.

 

I'm sure I've put this up before, but here are Echiums on a roundabout here ...

 

This, so far, is the Winter to be having them outside and ready to flower this coming Spring

 

Apart from the caterpillars!
So far it least deffo the winter but it's gotta bite us on the ass soon surely?

 

And the rain!

It's too good to be true. We'll probably have killing frosts in June.

 

I'm finding my outdoor ones are growing even now, its still mild enough.

I've never found the damp to be a problem as long as the temperatures are above freezing, its when the water freezes in the crown that the damage is done, in fact they thrive on lots of water, and in most usual summer mine find it to dry, so they go into hibernation and stop growing.
I dont think they really need much heat, its more about water in summer and mild winters.

I know they grow naturally in places that are much warmer than here, but I assume they go dormant in mid summer and wait for rain, they are very drought tolerant, but just stop growing.
Just what I have found over the years.

 

I appear to have a plant showing the signs of flowering this year.
I'm a bit surprised as the plant is not that large really, I planted it out last spring as a replacement for one that was killed in the previous winter.



Cant work out why the picture keeps coming out sideways ?

 

Pete thats a wonderfully healthy looking Echium.

I have overwintered mine inside the house, but they suffer because I forget to water them enough. As you said they seem to like a lot of water, even over the winter.

 

I tend to think they would do their growing in the winter months in habitat, flower winter or early spring, non flowering plants going dormant, almost, during the dry summer months.
I could be talking rubbish.

Over here we have to make them grow in summer, so lots of water in summer and being a bit dry in winter will not kill them,it could however mess up their flowering cycle, as I think they will always want to flower in spring.
The mild wet winter has been ideal, up till now, for outside plants, a bit like a few years ago.

This plant is the same age as the first one, but been kept starved in a 5in pot, I have no doubts that if I plant it out this spring it will go on to produce a similar plant by this time next year, if the frost allows.

 

last year was THE year to have been brave enugh to plant out your Echiums.

Wish I had ...

 

I just plant a couple every year.
They grow fast and make good foliage in the summer if given gallons of water.
If they overwinter, like this year, up to now, then you are well ahead.

 

I'm growing E.candicans and I have one in the house which has a habit of losing its leaves quicker, one in the garden which is rampant (sadly the caterpillars are still rampantly munching it) and two in the greenhouse. Those two are good - one in a 15cm pot and one that I was holding back for next year in an 8cm pot. So of my four, the one in the house is the least happy.