Hi GPODers!
This season we’ve enjoyed the beauty of a range of fabulous spring plants: flowering trees and shrubs in a vast array of sizes and shapes, bold bulbs that welcome spring with their bright color, and perennials that kick off the season with diverse (if often ephemeral) blooms. Today, we’re heading to Northern California to visit Adriana Porter Felt and see the spring plant that she enjoys most and that we haven’t been treated to yet this season.
Hi GPOD,
I’m writing you from Berkeley, California.
I planted pride of Madeira (Echium candicans, Zones 9–11) for their spring blooms. They burst forth into tall blue spires in mid-March and last until May, providing an early but long-lasting statement in the garden. I situated it both in my hillside garden and in containers along my sidewalk strip.
I’ve seen pride of Madeira described online as short-lived, but in my neighborhood it grows for decades. Some of my neighbors have pride of Madeira with trunks as thick as my leg. I think the secret is that our climate and terrain are very similar to its native habitat on the island of Madeira. Like Madeira, we have dry summers, and I provide only limited summer irrigation. I also live on a rocky clay hillside, which is ill-suited to English cottage flowers but perfect for Mediterranean plants from rugged mountains.
Countless bees flock to it for the spring nectar. I spy European honeybees, native carpenter bees, and bumblebees in the mix. I love to sit in an Adirondack chair and surround myself with their humming.
Each plant has a slightly different color, ranging from light blue to dark purple. A few special plants have multicolor blossoms.
Best,
Adriana (@adriana_igs_holes on Instagram)
Earlier in the season, flowers are just starting to bloom on this plant’s massive inflorescences. At their largest, these spires can grow up to 20 inches long.
As its name indicates, pride of Madeira is native only to the Madeira islands, an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean that belongs to Portugal and is famous for its stunning landscapes, vibrant culture, and unique plant life. Outside of it’s incredible natural scenery, including an ancient laurel forest that is a UNESCO World Heritage site, there are a multitude of incredible gardens that earn Madeira many nicknames: the Garden Island, the Floating Garden, and Garden Isle.
Found on the rocky slopes of Madeira, this plant is drought tolerant, salt tolerant, and deer resistant. As Adriana mentioned above, these characteristics are a great match to the climate of Northern California, but this can also be a detriment. When not kept under control, it can escape cultivated regions and encroach on native plant species. Keeping these plants away from open natural spaces and removing flowers before seeds mature is best practice for growing pride of Madeira in California.
Adriana is keeping her plantings in check; her rocky black slope is perfectly dotted with these bright spires of blooms. They look particularly lovely paired with the early blossoms of her pink flowering dogwood (Cornus florida f. rubra, Zones 5–9).
Here’s another angle of the pride of Madeira scattered across Adriana’s hillside garden, mingling well with her other plants and complementing all the other purple and pink flowers in her spring landscape. She has done an incredible job creating a garden with that lush English cottage feel, but with plants that are better adapted for her rocky clay conditions.
Lastly, Adriana included a video of these spectacular blooms glowing in the sun, the beautiful sounds of birds chirping in the background.
It’s always hard to pick a “favorite” plant, but are there any specimens in your garden that you’re particularly proud of? A plant you saved from the brink of death, a species you carefully overwinter indoors every year to grow in your zone, or a plant with so much sentimental meaning that you’ve dug it up to bring to a new garden or passed it down to another gardener in your family? Let us know in the comments below, or share photos of your prize plant with the blog! Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.
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