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I've just spotted something interesting in my Dobies seed catalogue- a tree echium (pininana).

It apparently grows to a magnificent 4m tall, and produces a wonderful spear of flowers.

I'd love to try it, but in the catalogue it says it is a perennial, yet online the BBC tell me that it is only half-hardy. The thing is, it takes two years to flower.

Has anyone any experience of these? Do they survive the first winter?

They do in Kent... but not in Derby. I am trying again...  :-X

I've tried twice in Birmingham. The drop dead at the mere sight of chilly weather. I've seen them growing in Cornwall.

Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on October 07, 2009, 19:58:29
I've tried twice in Birmingham. The drop dead at the mere sight of chilly weather. I've seen them growing in Cornwall.

I'm in Brum, too.


:P

I built a large frame around four and got one through the Winter but then it didn't flower and the second winter got it...
but I have half a dozen in the big greenhouse...  :-X

I had three plants three years ago, two died from the frost but one survived and flowered. Quite impressive and now many plants appearing around the garden. Will they survive the winter? Last year the only one I had succumbed to the frost.
Its a bit hit and miss and probably only reasonable to expect them to survive the winter in the S West in the UK.

Last Winter was excessive... my friend whose father grows them in Kent has never sown them since the mid 90's... once one flowers he reckons you have the seedlings for life...  :-X

they overwinter here, there's one just round the corner that I have seed from. and a few miles north of here there is a small copse of them in a roadside garden (hemsbynr gt yarmouth)

I will have to sulk now...  ;D

I have to hoe the flowerbeds quite often to get rid of seedling, otherwise we would be overgrown with them. I thought I hads lost this years flowering plants because of the frosts last winter, but quite a few still popped up out of the undergrowth where they were protected and done their thing.

Still havn't got a white one though! Mostly blue and a few pink.  Ugly things really but I still like them.

 >:(   ;)