Flowering Plant ID

[ElasticFirecracker]

Please could someone tell me what this is. It's quite tall.

I’ve got an Echium Pininana which I hope will look like yours when it decides to flower

Could be a type ofVeronica speedwell

I seriously want an echium

(Multiples preferably!)

Thank you all, sadly they are not mine. I just walked past them and instantly wanted them in my garden.

Off to try and buy some now.

They are biennial so that's the second year. They are brilliant plants and self seed quite well when they are happy but not where you'd always want them.

www.cooltropicalplants.com/Echium-pininana.html

They are taking over my neck of the woods - because they are prolific self-seeders, our local community garden sells lots of seedlings, so people take them home, and then they have lots of seedlings and on it goes! I love them, although find they don’t flower until their third year.

having grown them for years (Cornwall) I agree that they flower in their third year, only occasionally in the second

I kept putting them off for that reason - I was impatient for instant results in my bare garden! Had I planted them when I intended (4-5yrs ago!) I'd probably have awesome towering plants by now

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat I'm incredibly impatient too, and we might actually move in the next year or so, so I am anxious for instant garden gratification. But they would be such a fantastic plant.

Someone told me of another related plant 'Vipers Bugloss' which is not quite so dramatic but will flower more regularly.

I'm going to try the Echinium anyway.

Exactly - instant garden gratification

Vipers bugloss look good! I'm obsessed with vertical/spires of plants. My zillion foxgloves seem to have disappeared this year despite me shaking the dry seed heads everywhere

I struggle a bit with delphinium, hollyhocks and lupins in my garden. I might by a purple salvia. I've already planted sunflowers indoors