The Dreamy Echium
By Andrea Peck
If you are looking for a plant that belts out Wonderland, Romance and Fairytale in melodic unison, look no further than the Tower of Jewels (Echium wildpretii ). Two years ago, I took a chance on this homely little tike. It had grey-green, triangular-shaped leaves and sat in a slumped sort of way in the pot. It looked like a whole lot of nothing. But, the description, along with a picture taped up above the display, prompted me to spend the $3.99 required to bring the 4” container home.
I planted it out in the middle of what should probably be called my personal garden wasteland, but we'll just call it the front yard. It didn't do anything for two years. It did not die. It did not grow significantly. Its shlumpiness got a bit more pronounced, but that did not seem promising. I was not hugely disappointed because I tend to be unconfident when it comes to new plants. Who was I to expect that this beautiful creature would make an appearance in my yard anyway? Just another waste of $3.99, I thought.
But, this year it blew me away.
I'm a little fuzzy with the months, but I want to say somewhere in May and June it grew to gigantic proportions. It was mammoth and dramatic. I'd peek out into my yard and swoon over it. The flower spike was large (about 4 feet) and conical, with masses of tiny pink-red flowers. The Tower of Jewels moniker is hardly an exaggeration --you half expect it to turn into some exotic princess or mystical sprite. Even the way it leans and curves its massive octopus-like appendage is charming.
The plant is native to the Canary Islands and was at one point an endangered species. Efforts to save the magical beast have paid off, however. Echium is habituated to a dry climate, making it drought-tolerant. It does not fare well in frost, particularly conditions below 20°F. It grows best in fast draining, rocky soil. Cactus soil is a good choice. It can be grown successfully in a container, but it will need irrigation to prevent drying out. It does not need fertilizing.
To be honest, photographs do no justice to this plant. You really must see them in 3-dimensions. Not only is the plant spectacular in the sunlight, but it teams with life as bees buzz around it and hummingbirds hastily spiral from flower to flower.
Sometime around July my plant started to shrivel like the Wicked Witch's legs in the Wizard of Oz. Death was imminent. Of course, I did not have time to extricate it from my yard as we were in summer-mode. Luckily, I left it, because I learned that the Echium, though considered an annual, drops lots and lots of seeds.
It still reclines in my yard, a pile of gray matter that looks something like a long tube of gray ash. I'm not moving it—no way.
I'm hoping for a forest of them next year.