How to grow an unusual Echium in a garden

Echium - an original annual plant from the Borage family is also called "bruise". It comes from the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Already in the 17th century, one of the species began to be grown as a honey plant - Echium crooked-flowered (plantain). The plant is unpretentious, long and abundantly flowering, cold-resistant and drought-resistant. In a flowering state, 30-40 cm high and up to 40 cm wide. The echium plant resembles a ball covered with numerous funnel-shaped flowers 2-2.5 cm in diameter. Their color is constantly changing: the buds are pink, the opened flowers are blue, and, after blooming, they acquire a pinkish-lilac color.

For growing seedlings, echium seeds are usually sown in mid-March. With a damp substrate and at a temperature of + 20-22. a hail of emergence can be expected already on the 6-7th day. They need to be placed in a well-lit place, and also be watered carefully, without waterlogging. If the seedlings are dense, they should be dived right after the cotyledon is straightened out. Rare - possible later, when 2-3 true leaves are formed. 10-12 days after the picking, I feed the plants with a full complex fertilizer (according to the instructions) and repeat the feeding again after 10-12 days. Seasoned seedlings of echium can be planted in a flower garden in mid-May. Such echium seedlings bloom in early June, 60-65 days after germination.

Echium: growing a plant

You can sow the seeds of echium and immediately to a permanent place, in early May, in a warm ground. Better nests, two or three seeds at a distance of 25-30 cm. Cover the crops with foil. They germinate in 10-15 days. If there are extra shoots in some nests, they can be plucked out or planted. Echium plants will bloom in early July. Echium is very beautiful in the flower garden in the foreground. Good as a border - keeps the line perfectly. They can be used to surround the trunk circles in a young garden, where there is still a lot of light. Suitable for containers: pots, balcony boxes, garden vases with other well-chosen plants. And over the plantings of echium, butterflies and moths constantly flutter.