Vipers bugloss

[andy]

For the entire "summer", i have been driving past a plant that has been growing happily on the side of a slop road leading onto the main A27 in Brighton.

This plant, unknown until today, has been truly spectacular with some stunning shades of brilliant blue.

We have a wild flower expert at our nursery whom i'm very good friends with and he has today identified it as Vipers bugloss or Echium vulgare.

www.uksafari.com/vipersbugloss.htm

Has anyone else seen or grown this plant that has amaized me for the past 4 months with its beauty.

Andy

[Barbara]

that's lovely andy, wish it would self seed in my garden ;D

[Weeterrier]

No Andy, I have never seen it apart from in my Wildflower book. It is lovely.

[Biggles]

In my last garden it self deeded until it became a nuisance! It is pretty but can be a "pretty nuisance"

[4pygmies]

Vipers Bugloss is a LOVELY wild flower which is very common around here on the roadsides. En masse it is a spectacular shade of blue. But it is quite prickly to handle if you grow it yourself. It is one of the few plants for which I wear gloves when I want to handle it.
Can I also recommend Alkanet? Another beautiful blue wild flower , a member of the Borage family. I've posted a picture of that before on here but, as usual, I can't find it..

[Deleted]

Lovely flower Andy

4P - I grew Alkanet in my last garden but I wasn't impressed by it - the plant was huge with very small flowers.

[4pygmies]

Well, it is a woodland edge plant Rita, so maybe it just wasn't in the right setting. Under a dappled hedge grown in a clump I think that particular shade is blue is quite unusual and gorgeous.

[Deleted]

Could be that it was too well fed too 4P - which would result in lots of foliage.

[Chuckles]

I'm sure I've seen it before but not sure were

Lovely pretty flower, this site shows it really well www.missouriplants.com/Bluealt/Echium_vulgare_page.html