Tall flowering plant ID please

Growing in a seaside cottage garden:

 

Echium Pininana

 

I know I know what it is ... but it escapes me. I think pete has/had this in the past ... certainly someone on GC has so hopefully they will come to your rescue.

 

The above may explain why I've walked past that garden hundreds of times and not noticed them before.

 

There we go, Noisette is correct with an Echium ... here are some on a roundabout in Portimão, but they were only about two meters tall ... I think this is Echium candicans, the Pride of Madeira ...

 

The ones in my pic were at least 10 feet tall - I feel the need check again tomorrow as they could have been a few feet or so higher than that, and enjoy it some more before it dies now that it's flowered.

 

I've grown Echium pininana & 'snow tower' in the past and got them to big sized (4ft) plants of just leaves but never managed to get them to flower, loosing them over winter. But I did get a hybrid Echium to flower once in a relatively small pot and that produced a stunning pink & purple flower spike of a modest 6ft

I saw some Echium's flowering in a Winsford Walled Garden's in Devon, they were growing them in a greenhouse and outside and the ones in the greenhouse had their flower spikes sticking straight through an opening created by temporarily removing a pane of glass, they were a good 12-14ft tall!!!

 

Difficult to get through the Winter, so may be that in previous years they haven't made it - to then flower in their final year. They are common place on Guernsey, for example, and probably in Cornwall too. They seed readily, so once they have flowered you won't be short of seedlings in following years ... just need favourable winters to get them up to flowering size

 

Used to have good results back when we were getting mild winters, recent winters have been too cold in my part of the country, but I usually have a couple of plants on the go. hoping for a mild one.

 

Dunno about the plant but the cottages look like Alms houses Scrunge, where be that to then?

 

The Coastguard Cottages, Minehead. This pic on Flickr was taken before those plants I saw were there (but I wonder about those tall plants further back on the left)

 

They definitely look like Echiums too Scrungee

 

Those are superb Scrungee. I have only had them up to about 9 feet and am very jealous. Being colder up in Yorkshire they don't flower till the third or fourth year for me. The crowns tend to rot off in our winter damp when under glass, but I can usually manage to get a few through the winter.

I am inclined to say that Echium candicans, that Victoria showed above, is a rather easier plant to grow. They seem to survive the winter more easily for me. One reason is that unlike most Echiums they branch and so have several growing points. E,pininana only has one growing point and if that cops it - its usually all over. The other point is that, unlike other Echiums, candicans doesn't die after flowering.