Miss Whilmott's Ghost (can't remember the Latin name)

[Primrose]

Went to an historic garden recently and saw lots of these beautiful silver foliage thistle-type plants with bluish heads absolutely smothered with bees. I bought a packet of seed because I thought it would help encourage bees into the garden but have since read they're a very invasive plant because it scatters its seed everywhere. Does anybody have any experience of growing it? If I sow a few in a tray, how does one transplant them? Are the seedlings covered in thorny spikes or is this just a feature of the fully grown plants.

[vivienz]

Hi Primrose,
I think that they may be (excuse the spelling) eryngium, or sea holly. Fabulous looking things - like teasles with attitude! I thought they were perennials and you can transplant, with them flowering in the second year on (a bit like rudbeckia). I don't know if the seedlings are spiny, I'm afraid.
Best wishes.
Vivien

[Bren]

Primrose
I grew it some years ago it didn't seed itself about, it was a perennial and flowered every year, it dried nicely for winter decoration but eventually I lost it, I don't remember it having spicky foliage.
Bren

[FelixLeiter]

Does anybody have any experience of growing it? If I sow a few in a tray, how does one transplant them? Are the seedlings covered in thorny spikes or is this just a feature of the fully grown plants.

Eyngium giganteum, to be precise, is its Latin name. I wouldn't bother faffing about starting them off in a seed tray. Scatter the seeds as they would be scattered naturally and you'll soon find them appearing. The spines aren't anything like as menacing as they look. It's a biennial, growing as a rosette the first year and then sending up a flower spike the next. There are many Eryngiums, nearly all of them exciting to grow. I raised some E. agavifolium from seed a few years ago and they are spectacular. They in turn have self-seeded.

[Clive.]

My work sees me in another garden that has them

In their early life the "Miss Wilmots Ghost" plants have round leaves..then change to a bit more of a wide arrowhead? pointed leaf....it is only in the second year that the stem runs up to produce the spikey flower head.
When we show a visitor a young plant in a pot in the sales area they take some convincing that we are not trying to sell a wrong un with leaves nothing like that of the plant which they have seen in flower.
The young seedlings transplant out of gravel paths very well..

We have a lovely blue stemmed perennial, Amethystinum?, that does not grow from seed..so it is root cuttings for that one..and not too successfully ..shame
We also have Bourgattii?....and Planum Blaukappe??

We too have Agavifolium...and a couple of other similar but more branching smaller flower heads, finer leaves and twice as tall that came, I think, from Plant World Seeds.
http://www.plant-world-seeds.com/store/ ... g=eryngium

They are certainly an interesting group of plants....and Bees seem to get paralytic? on them....but is that good

Clive.

[Primrose]

Thank you for all your replies. I think I'll just do the seed scattering and see what happens, rather than sowing and transplanting. Thanks too Clive for the information about the young plants and how different they look, which is always helpful when distinquishing with weeds. I might try a little 'guerilla gardening' too if I can find a suitable wild spot for a few seeds. I just wish I had a bigger garden where I could have a huge bed of these plants all to themselves as they are so spectacular.

[Clive.]

Hello Primrose,

I took a few photos at lunchtime today...

Miss Wilmott, from seed tray to flower...

Clive.

[Clive.]

... I also went out to photo' the other Eryngium and managed to catch a Painted Lady on Blaukappe?

Clive.

[Primrose]

Clive - thank you for posting these photos. They are so helpful because I would never have believed that those little round leaved green seedlings would turn into the adult silver leaved plant. If I had scattered the seeds in the wild I probably would not have recognised them for what they were and might even have been tempted to pull them up, thinking they were weeds.