Anyone grown Echium Wildpretii?

[MonkeyDavid]

Anyone had any experience with this? Just ordered some seeds & was wondering how they compare to Pininana, namely in hardiness, germination, speed of growth, overall height etc. Read up on them & have a fair idea but always better to know others opinions

[dave2166]

have grown them, and am currently doing a few echium varieties fro seed... there germination is pretty much the same as others, as is height, but they have a few moe leaves on the main stem whilst the others can be a bit barer

hardiness is maybe a tad better, but the main difference is the flower spike being a deep red rather than blue or white...

[TonyJ]

Hardiness - I have found Wildpretii to be hardier than Pininana, at least this year. All of my E.Pins carked in the -7 we had earlier in the year, (even with fleece covers !). I still have 3 Wildpretii alive and one looks like it may flower this year too ! Very easy to germinate, I found they almost come up like cress. Plant them up against a warm wall and get ready for a 5-6ft red flower spike ! For info I also have E. Fastuosum in a pot which has plenty of well developed flower spikes on it. A little too tender for outside here but stick it in a greenhouse and it'll push out its blue flowers every year.

[sanatic1234]

Anyone had any experience with this? Just ordered some seeds & was wondering how they compare to Pininana, namely in hardiness, germination, speed of growth, overall height etc. Read up on them & have a fair idea but always better to know others opinions

Been reading on this tonight, they are frost hardy. Like really good drainage and can grow to 7ft, they also put out the flower stalk in there second growing season.

[Palmer]

Here in east Yorkshire I can’t over winter wildpetii in the ground, they need very good drainage! So I would keep them in pots until there second or third year then plant them out to flower.
I over wintered them in my un-heated greenhouse and found them to be hardier then pininana but they must be kept dry in winter or they are prone to rot.
Its well worth all the effort wildpretii looks stunning when in flower and the silver foliage is very nice too.


Tony

[rburrena]

Here is mine with its fellow canary island native (both looking a little worse for wear after winter but nothing too serious), grew it from seed last year, I am hoping it will flower this summer!!