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Echiums, cold snap.... again

Tommie55Tommie55 Posts: 8
in Problem solving
Hey guys, I’ve stumbled across and perused a thread from 2018, so I’m only 3 years to late. however.... the frost is there year in, year out.
So, am I right in thinking that if you’re covering 1-5’ echium pininana & candidans with fleece around and spanning bamboo canes or timber frames, that if any part of the fleece touches the foliage during a prolonged 5 day recurring frost (as we have just come out of at 15 feb) then the lovely long full green leaves get ‘burned’ and transition into a droopy, grey dead colour.

I’ve been growing them for a few years, with a some spectacular successes but also some devastating losses...... FROST AGAIN.... so I just wanna verify that it’s the fleece contact that’s killing my beautiful echium

Posts

  • Tommie55Tommie55 Posts: 8
    Don’t wanna gloat but I’m going to anyway, this is from a few years ago in Exeter.... nice huh ?
  • luis_prluis_pr Posts: 123
    Very, very nice!
  • SophieKSophieK Posts: 244
    Oh wow, beautiful echiums!

    I had the same musings as you re. fleece contact but by then it was already too late :/

    I planted some echiums (fastuosum) for the first time last year and they were beautiful and lush (not flowered yet, that was a feat I was hoping for this year). I had protected them with fleece as and when temperatures dipped, but the frosts of last week have decimated them. The leaves are now grey and shrivelled and I am expecting them to fall off in the next few days. Do you think there is any chance my once promising echiums might survive?
  • JennifermusherJennifermusher Posts: 1
    Advice please. My beautiful echiums have been badly affected by the cold spell. The leaves are withering and going black. Should I remove the leaves or just let them drop off the plants? Is there anything  I can do to revive them?
  • SophieKSophieK Posts: 244
    Jennifermusher said:
    Advice please. My beautiful echiums have been badly affected by the cold spell. The leaves are withering and going black. Should I remove the leaves or just let them drop off the plants? Is there anything  I can do to revive them?
    I am going to let the grey withered leaves fall on their own. I did some research on the internet today, and should we be lucky the echiums could sprout new leaves in the spring. I guess time will tell. Good luck to you (and me!)
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    edited February 2021
    I would also wait and see. The stem may have life in it. I am quite surprised that my Echiums (candicans) seem to have survived. The leaves were hanging right down but they have mainly returned to normal after the thaw. Some of the lower ones are grey and look dead. They were unprotected, but next to a house wall in pots (these are seedlings sown last summer). I think they may have to stay in pots so I can move them out of harms way if we get another cold snap. I'm hoping they will self seed so there is a supply of replacements.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I think most people collect seed to sow as back up. They aren't particularly frost hardy. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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