Annuals & Biennials

Echium
Echium
viper's bugloss

- Height 1-2 ft (30-60 cm)
- Planting distance 9-18 in (23-45 cm)
- Flowers early to late summer
- Any well-drained garden soil
- Sunny site
- Hardy annual or biennial

Echiums are valuable in summer beds and borders, where their bright, upturned bell-shaped flowers add color throughout the summer and are very attractive to bees. Although of biennial habit, they will flower in their first year from seed and frequently seed themselves.

Popular species and cultivars
Echium lycopsis (syn. E. plantaginuum) is a bushy, erect annual growing to a height of 2 ft (60 cm), its stems set with midgreen oblong leaves. From early summer on, 10 in (25 cm) long flower spikes are closely packed with purple or blue tubular blooms. Several seed selections, ideal for containers, are available, including 'Blue Bedder' (1 ft/30 cm high, bearing deep blue flowers), and 'Dwarf Hybrids' (1 ft/30 cm tall, in a mixture of white, pink, rose, and various shades of blue and purple.) Echium vulgare is a biennial usually grown as an annual. It is about 2 ft (60 cm) high, of bushy but compact habit, with leaves that are lance-shaped and dark green. The tubular flowers are borne in shorter but dense and profuse spikes; they are purple in bud and open violet-blue.

Annuals
and
Biennials