Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’

Description

Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’

My favourite of the Globe Thistles. This magnificent variety produces stiff silvery stems with dark green, silver-backed thistle-like leaves which terminate in brilliant dark, vivid blue globes the size of a spiky golf ball. The dramatic flower shape gives a great architectural quality to the border and the flowers are a magnet for bees. Very undemanding and rewarding, growing 3-4 feet high. Flowers can be dried upside down for everlasting decorations. Requires only sun and decent drainage in any soil to do well.

EA Bowles would often recommend these plants to entomologists fro their gardens. There is nothing finer for attracting night feeding moths which can be viewed at in the dark with a torch.

Although the majority of Globe Thistles are blue, there is one red species that comes from Kenya.

The Greek species, Echinops viscosus is used to produce a form of chewing gum known as Angado Mastiche.

The name Echinops derives from the Greek Echinos, a sea urchin or hedgehog, and opsis to resemble.