Original, striking and exotically appealing, Echium pininana is a plant native to the Canary Islands worth trying in your garden if you live in a mild-winter, coastal region. It is also called Canary viper's-bugloss, 'Pride of Tenerife' or 'Tower Jewels'. Spectacular, it is very graphic. 

It produces a giant inflorescence resembling a cone-shaped candle, studded with small blue flowers mixed with small silvery leaves. This flowering stem can reach a height of 3 metres. Astonishing, it attracts pollinating insects. 

This biennial plant dies after two years, at end of summer, when it releases its seeds, giving rise to new shoots. Echium pininana reseeds spontaneously after flowering, but you can also sow seeds yourself. Discover our tips to sow Echium pininana. 

How to harvest seeds of Echium pininana?

Echium pininana produces in first year a rosette of lanceolate silvery-green leaves covered with slightly irritating hairs. In second year, plant puts up a 3-metre inflorescence that produces, in July and August, clusters of small violet-blue flowers mixed with narrow silvery-green leaves. At end of summer, flowers are replaced by small brown fruits filled with seeds. When they release their seeds, plant reseeds spontaneously.

You can harvest these seeds directly from plant and keep them dry before sowing them yourself or buy sachets of Echium pininana seeds. 

Where and when to sow Echium pininana?

Echium pininana is frost-sensitive from -3°C to -4°C and prefers full sun, heat and drained, even arid, soils. Given its size, it should also be sheltered from wind. Mild-winter, coastal regions are ideal for this plant. 

Echium pininana seeds are sown from late May to late July. 

When to sow Echium pininana seeds?

Equipment

• Special sowing compost
• Conventional buckets or biodegradable buckets
• Mister

Sowing steps

• Sowing is possible either directly in ground in full sun if growing conditions suit plant (light soil and coastal region with mild climate), or in pots. 
• Sow seeds 3 mm deep in pots in special sowing compost
• Mist regularly to keep substrate moist until germination 

• Place at temperature between 18 and 20°C
• Germination takes between 7 and 14 days 
• When shoots are handleable and still young, transplant into 7.5 cm diameter pots.

• Keep pots all winter in a conservatory, an unheated greenhouse or on a windowsill at 7°C
• Following spring, you can plant them in ground or in a large pot in full sun in a well-drained, even stony or arid, substrate.
• In ground, space plants 1 metre apart.
• Water Echium pininana sparingly as plant prefers dry soils.

Care after sowing

• If Tower Jewels was sown in ground, watering is not necessary, even in summer
• If grown in a pot, you can water once or twice a week during growth and slightly more in summer. 
• In winter, bring pot into a bright, frost-free conservatory and water very little. 
• Not very susceptible to diseases and pests, Tower Jewels can serve, in a greenhouse, as a refugium for red spider mites or whiteflies. In that case, when warm season returns, take pot out of conservatory and place in full sun to ventilate plant foliage.
• In ground, young shoots may be eaten by slugs. 
• If handling plant, take care to wear gloves as flowers and hairs contain an irritant that can cause a local reaction on contact with skin. 

Further reading

Discover our growing and care tips for Echium or viper's-bugloss.