Echium

Last year I commented on the fact that we had planted a couple of echium rather too close to a magnolia stellata, but expected that they would die off after flowering.  Though I haven't blipped it (it's really difficult to get a decent photo) one of the echium went on to grow spectacularly tall, and flower beautifully.  The other was more stunted, but also flowered well.  And we thought that would be that.  

But although the main stem did die off, but three side stems of the tall echium have continued to grow, and this year are flowering well.  In addition, there are some babies in the area - seedlings from last year's flowering.  The poor magnolia is still - just - alive, though unsurprisingly it didn't manage any flowers this year.

So now what do we do?  The echium seem to be happy where they are.  And they are such spectacular plants, it seems a shame not to nurture them.  I think we probably have to try to rescue the magnolia from under them, and after resuscitating it in a pot for a year or two, find it an alternative site.

As an extra, for Bivbov, I have added a photo of the tulips from a couple of days ago.  They had, over the last couple of days, developed classic "tulip droop".  I considered keeping them, for further emergency blips, but I don't seem to be short of subjects at the moment, so I have donated them to the garden waste bin, and replaced them with some stocks and tulips bought yesterday on my supermarket shopping trip.