Pride Of Madeira Blooms In Northern Israel

One of my favorite non-native yet very Mediterranean garden friendly plants is Pride of Madeira. I found some small plants at a local nursery years ago, and the tiny plants have become woody bushes/trees that bloom every Spring with gorgeous cone-shaped purple flower stalks. This year we had a very wet winter and so all the plants are blooming roughly a month late, which is fine by me, just now that the hot weather has arrived the blooms will likely not last as long, such is life. In any case, I’ve once again photographed the Pride of Madeira bush in a garden I designed a few years back, and it is lovely as ever.

Interestingly, Pride of Madeira (Echium candicans) is native only to the island of Madeira which lies in the Atlantic, southwest of Portugal. However, its rosettes of soft green leaves and dramatic spikes of blue-purple flowers, together with its drought tolerance have made it a landscaping favorite worldwide, including coastal California. (I have seen lots of it in Northern California, like at the Berkeley marina.) Just beware, as unfortunately, it occasionally escapes gardens and moves into wildlands where it eliminates the native plants that support  native birds and mammals. If you are interested in learning more, check out the link here, with photos of the plant in it’s native environment! And if you are not a gardener, then maybe you like to paint or sketch and this one is a beauty to feature, right? Enjoy a little step into a garden in Northern Israel where Pride of Madeira steals the show every Spring.

Love this plant, as the spiky leaves are unique, as are the cone shaped flowers.
Here you can see that the plant is very woody, and needs to be cut back in the winter.

Here is a flower just getting ready to bloom, sweet! 

Happy gardening to all those fortunate enough to have a patch of land, or even a place for some large containers. And like I mentioned earlier in this post, if you can’t garden, why not paint or draw a garden?