I missed having echiums in the garden this summer. They were the undoubted stars of 2025, towering twice the height of the average adult, the upright spikes made up of hundreds of small, blazing blue-purple flowers. The bees love them.
A native of the Canary Islands, Echium pininana – AKA giant vipers bugloss – is guaranteed to bring drama to any garden. It’s a show stopper, a jaw dropper and a real head turner.
It previously only prospered in the southern, coastal parts of Ireland and Britain but climate change means it’ll now withstand most winters farther north. Visit Howth Head in north Co Dublin and you’ll see it in all its naturalised glory where it’s colonised an area populated by gorse until wildfires in 2018.
I’m told it’s a biennial, meaning it takes two years to complete its biological life cycle. However, in my albeit limited experience of eight plants donated by a friend, it seemed to take three years – if not four – before finally flowering and dying, during which time two well-established plants perished.
What the textbooks do get right about Echium pininana is that it’s a prolific self-seeder. Each flower on the huge spikes produces hundreds if not thousands of seeds, leading to dozens if not hundreds of little seedlings the following year. This proliferation is what concerns naturalists, who quite correctly argue that plants which naturalise so rapidly pose a threat to native flora that’s often already marginalised.
In gardening terms, Murphy’s Law means they’ll never germinate exactly where you want them to, in an appropriate bed or border, but they’re more likely to make themselves at home on a gravel driveway, the perfect, free-draining nursery where there’s usually little competition and often plenty of sun.
The abundance of seedlings is a boon and a bane.
Firstly, there’s the ethics and the question of whether we should be encouraging an invasive alien. It is possible to just weed out and dispose of any seedlings you come across, ensuring this non-native doesn’t escape from your garden and threaten biodiversity.
But then that would be to discard a bounty of plants that in full maturity will turn heads and drop jaws, as well as being a mecca for bees. Move quickly while it’s still okay to transplant the echium seedlings and that’s the Christmas presents for friends sorted.
This is an approach you can adopt with all self-seeders, being mindful at all times that what you’re exchanging or giving away may not be as benign as it appears.
For instance avoid propagating crocosmia (AKA monbretia), Rhododendron ponticum and cherry laurel. These are all very invasive plants with no ecological value. They simply thuggishly colonise the space previously occupied by native flora.
Not native but less of a threat are rosa rugosa, buddleia and evening primrose, all of which are popular with a variety of pollinating insects.
Also prone to turning up on the driveway nursery are the celebrated natives fox glove, mullein and teasel. Move to a bed as soon as possible rather than pots as the tap roots go deep.
