plant or weed?

[HolidaySleep]

Hi! I have a lovely border that I planted last year, using a scheme put together by a garden designer.

So I've been lovingly tending to it, watching the perennials grow, including this one. However, the bigger it's got the more I'm wondering if it's a weed. I doesn't look like anything else in my planting scheme...

I've been watering a weed for months haven't I?

It could be an echinops (globe thistle.) Beautiful round steel blue flower heads, an absolute orgy of bees when it flowers.

Aaah there were definitely enchinops in the planting plan so that must be it. I should have kept the labels.

Thank you so much.

I agree it is an echinops. Do you know how tall that variety grows? It may need a stake.

I have this, it's now huge, about three foot high and five foot long, and it's self seeding in other areas. If you're looking for ground coverage it's good as it spreads. Otherwise you need to keep it pruned back.

Mines at the bottom of the garden and we do nothing with it, not even water it, and it grows like wildfire.

We dug ours out around 3 years ago as it got some sort of weird - well I don't even know what it was it looked terrible.

And this year it had popped back up about 3 feet away from where it was.

If you don't want it to self seed, just dead head it before the seeds ripen. Although the birds do love the seeds.