Blue Thistles

I like this plant a lot. It’s bold; it’s unusual; it’s attractive, but not too cute! I even named my jewelry business after this plant (Blue Thistle Designs). Officially, this plant is Blue Globe Thistle, Echinops ritro (‘Taplow Blue’).

I sometimes cut some of the flowers for a bouquet with other summer bloomers such as Coneflowers and Brown Eyed Susans. The flowerheads make a very interesting dried head, especially if they are cut before the flowerhead starts to actually bloom. You can cut off the stem and then you have this bizarre, spiky ball that looks like it might be an alien!

The globes start out green and then turn steely blue. The blue color is brightest when they are actually flowering. It starts to bloom around mid July. The bees love this plant!

This was one of the first plants I bought during my first gardening season in this house. I didn’t understand very much about plant size at that time, and put it in the front of a bed. I bought 2 plants. It was very slow to get going; I don’t think it got taller than about 18” for at least two more years. But it finally settled in and started to have flowers. I realized that I erred in placing it, and dug it up. I moved one to a corner at the end of a long bed along the garage, and divided the other one and moved them to the small-ish area in front of the fireplace on the west side of my house – one on each side. The three plants have stayed put ever since.

When in flower, it is about 4 ½ to 5 feet tall. It is rather wide; a good 3 ½ feet in diameter, maybe more. The leaves do look like they’d be some sort of weed. It isn’t really a thistle (it is in the Aster family), but the leaves are a little spiny. It is more that the leaves are rough and scratchy rather than needle-like. The undersides of the leaves are a bit white-ish.

In the bed by the fireplace, it survives on rain only and does just fine. In the spot near the garage, it gets a bit of supplemental water because it is right next to some Iris and I do give them water from time to time. The flowerheads basically dry on their stalk. After the heads are dry and brittle and starting to fall apart, some of the leaves also start to get brown and ratty looking. At this point – late September, I often cut it down. Sometimes I’ll get another flush of leaves before winter sets in.

This plant self-seeds. The seedlings don’t look like the parent – seedling leaves are rounded and not spiny. I personally do not have trouble with the seedlings being too aggressive. If they start in the lawn, they eventually get mowed down. I’ll usually spend a few hours in late spring using a garden trowel to pull out seedlings that are in with other flowers where I don’t want them. This plant has a tap root, so the longer you leave it in an undesirable location, the harder it is to get it out.