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Echiums../Bay Area Nursery & Garden to visit

>From: "Richard Bradfield" <rfbradfield@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: Info on Echiums..
>Sender: owner-medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
>Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 07:27:20 PDT
>
> snip..
> >It most closely resembles the architectural form of
> >Echium wildpretii but always has blue flowers, greenish, hairy foliage
> >and is at least twice the size of Echium wildpretii.  <snip>
>
> Yes, it is Echium Pininana from the Canary Islands. It grows well here on
> the South coast of Ireland. Mine have now reached 15 feet and are presently
> covered in flowers.    <snip>

I will now confirm that this would seem to be a proper ID for the
Echium Ernie & I have been seeing around our area of California.  I
had a chance to stop by The Dry Garden (a local nursery which
features wonderful and strange plants), and there I saw a large
specimen of E. pininana flowering in the middle of one of the
plantings.  It must have been 12-15ft tall, dense with violet blue
flowers - Wonderful!  Richard Ward, the owner of this establishment
confirmed this ID.  He has several in 4in pots if anyone local is
interested. (6556 Shattuck Ave, Oakland; (510) 547-3564).

Just to plug this establishment a little more - Richard makes a very
modest living selling all of those unusual and strange items that
would in most cases be impossible to find elsewhere.  He is a very
nice fellow and I try and support his efforts whenever I can.  If
you are at all interested in plants unusual, sculptural, bizarre,
odd, 'artistic', or even somewhat humorous, a visit to the Dry
Garden is certainly a must.  He also hase a host of the more mudane
as well, in a newly expanded nursery area.  A good time for a visit
would be any Sunday (Richard is open 11-4) when you could also visit
Marcia Donahue's garden fantasy (she is only a couple of blocks from
Richard and always opens her garden/sculpture gallery to the public
on Sundays).  Marcia is a serious plantsperson and artist, and her
combinations of plants, sculpture, paving, etc. are truely amazing.
While the garden is more congested than I prefer, the jungle-like
quality is a fun experience.  I also visited her garden recently and
was pleased to see a whole host of new stuff since the last visit -
making is an experience to be repeated regularly.  Marcia is also a
dear woman and very interesting to talk with, so this is a good
opportunity to catch her in the garden.

 Sean A. O'Hara                     sean.ohara@ucop.edu
 710 Jean Street                    http://www.dla.ucop.edu/sao
 Oakland, California  94610-1459    h o r t u l u s   a p t u s
 (510) 987-0577                     'a garden suited to its purpose'
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