Exquisite Eryngiums

The Eryngiums, or Sea Hollies, are my heroes in the garden at the moment. I have successfully established some new flower beds with tall flowers that the insects love, like Verbascums, Verbenas, Achilleas, Scabious and Veronica. The problem this year is that the growth early in the summer was phenomenal, then we had some heavy rain and winds. Some of the flowers got really tall and flopped all over the lawn. I have wired some areas up, but a better solution has been some well positioned Eryngium plants. Their strong, stiff stems have provided extra support...and they are really beautiful, just coming into their own with vivid blue flowers. Despite their thistle-like spikiness they are actually umbellifers - members of the cow parsley family - and attractive to insects in their own right.