I'm back with a post for the final day of A Week of Flowers, sponsored by Cathy of Words and Herbs to brighten the gloomy days many in the Northern Hemisphere face as winter sets in. I shared February blooms on Day 2 and April blooms on Day 4 so I've chosen some of my favorite May flowers to end the week-long celebration.
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| This is variegated Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira'. Echium of all kinds do well in coastal Southern California's Mediterranean climate. In fact, some literally grow as weeds here. |
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| This is Echium webbii, which I love for the silvery sheen of its foliage as much as its flowers. The blue of the Echium flowers is echoed in the flowers of Felicia aethiopica. The yellow "blooms" in the background aren't flowers at all but the colorful bracts of Leucadendron 'Pisa'. |
Visit Words and Herbs to find other posts on this theme. Thank you Cathy for launching this effort! Even my part of the world gets a bit gloomy at this time of year. In fact, we're expecting mostly gray skies through Thursday this week but the silver lining is a chance of rain today and Thursday, which would be wonderful. Southern California is very, very dry and we need something approaching "normal" rain this season if we want to see plentiful flowers in the coming spring.
All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
I love the majesty of your Echiums, Kris. Beautiful! I hope the gray clouds in your forecast yield a generous portion of rain... fingers crossed!
ReplyDeleteWe got 0.04/inch of rain from today's system, Eliza, which is definitely not generous but falls into the better something than nothing category. Thursday's system promises more on the same order but there's yet another storm due on Monday-Tuesday that looks more promising, at least right now.
DeleteYour Echium are awesome, Kris. Gorgeous. Hope you get rain. We are forecast some for tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteWe got a teeny bit of rain in the early morning hours, Susie. There are 2 more storms on the horizon that could offer more. One long-term forecast I read a couple of months ago suggested that December could offer the best chances of rain for SoCal this season.
DeleteThey are wonderful plants Kris, and the shape alone makes them attractive. I have learnt an awful lot over the last few days about all sorts of plants, including Echiums. I feel as though I have been at an international garden party all week and it has been great fun! Thanks for sharing Kris!
ReplyDeleteThanks for planning the party, Cathy!
DeleteIt's wonderful to see such a well established and floriferous clump.
ReplyDeleteI routinely tip-prune the Echiums but they do get very large and woody over time and eventually need to be replaced. I'm not sure how much time 'Star of Madeira' has before that becomes necessary.
DeleteI love that variegated Echium. I once had one in a pot. Of course it never bloomed, but I cherished the foliage. And when I forgot to protect it, it died in winter. I would really like to be able to call it a weed. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, I've yet to see the variegated 'Star of Madeira' self-seed but the non-variegated form of Echium candicans pops up all over here. I pull out seedlings found in inappropriate spots all the time and currently have a good-sized specimen growing where the dead Toyon we removed used to be. Homeowners in the neighborhood who've never bothered to landscape their front garden also have lots of them ;)
DeleteLove the Echium webbii. It looks like a lupine on steroids.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers do have that aspect, Elaine! Echium is in the Borage family.
DeleteIf only my weeds had such presence...
ReplyDeleteHa! I took a walk through my local botanic garden this morning and one area was heavily populated with what I suspect were self-seeded Echiums. They didn't have the two varieties I showed in this post, though ;)
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