Echium ‘Cobalt Towers’

This New Zealand introduction created quite a stir when we planted a decent patch of it in the Alexandra Gardens in Melbourne. It makes a shrub some 2 metres wide and 1.5 metres tall from which 2 metre tall columns of deep cobalt blue flowers are produced in spring. After flowering it needs the spent flower stems cut off and a light prune. It will survive frost when established, but it can be risky planting it out in very cold areas before late spring.