• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal




  • Plant Library On The Journal
  • Garden chores
    • Do as I say
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
  • Privacy Policy

butterfly garden

Globe Thistles And Other Nice Looking Xeriscape Plants

July 16, 2013 by Ilona Erwin

Globe Thistle

The last post was about thistles, since I had been hard at work in the garden getting rid of as many as I possibly could manage, but there are lovely garden flowers that have thistle characteristics without their tendency to elbow everything else out.

Long ago, when planting my first garden on Glen Echo (isn’t that a lovely name for a street? Too bad it was located right next to a raucous, busy thoroughfare), I helped an elderly lady do some yard work. She grew a pretty perennial border and the globe thistle stood in a healthy stand within it. She called it “Goat’s thistle” as I recall, but its official name is Echinops. I think “goat’s” thistle is more of a noxious kind, and as a matter of fact, grazing goats are one means of getting rid of your thistle weed problems. Anyway, once I started my rural garden I decided that I had room for this plant with the steely blue flowers, and for another lovely thistly looking bloom, Eryngium.

Those were both planted in a part of the garden I sadly had to relinquish back to nature’s grasses, and the Eryngium succumbed to constant mowing, but the Globe thistle still survives. Surprisingly it never did spread into a large patch like I envisioned, but I like its odd flowers; they are reminiscent of a stiff Allium that comes along in midsummer.

I’m thinking of those flowers, now, since I would like to renew their acquaintance, and find a place to start them in my present flower gardens. They normally are quite persistent and tolerant of drought. Their subtle colors blend well into the garden and I think they would match up well with Russian sage and red Monardas. They might look pretty near the dusky ‘Diablo’ ninebarks (Physocarpus), if I have a space to tuck them in. I think I do! So that is an idea to jot down in my notebook.

It was E. maritinum that I grew, and while I might try Miss Willmott’s Ghost ( E. giganteum) the smaller “Sea Holly” has a cultivar called ‘Sapphire Blue’ that I’d like to look for at the end of summer.

Plant Families

Although Canadian thistle, Globe Thistle, and Eryngium all have a bristly appearance, only the two thistles are related inside the Asteracae family. The Sea Holly” is a different clan, completely: the Apiaceae. Yet, they have a similar appearance in the garden and their assets are much the same as well. Blue ( gray blue, actually) in flower, architectural in presence, of medium heights, and tough plants.

Globe ThistleConeflowers and eryngium
In these pictures the first one has Echinops with Adenophora and an orange daylily. The second picture has a stand of eryngium and coneflowers (Echinacea) just coming into bloom.

Plants For A Xeriscape

Both these plants like sunny spot, even sun baked. They handle drought and are beneficial plants for bees and butterflies, but not native to the USA. You can also dry the flower heads for arrangements.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit Ilona’s Garden Journal on facebook: Click here
© 2013 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

Filed Under: About garden flowers, Featured, July Tagged With: butterfly garden, weeds, wildflowers, xeriscape

Primary Sidebar

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Standouts

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

There are so many ways to enjoy herb plants, that they are not for herb gardens only. Think about tucking them into the landscape, into containers or into your home. I do I enjoy thee? Oh, Herb, Let me count the ways! 10 Ways I Enjoy Herbs (and you can, too!) In companion plantings, herbs […]

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Shirley poppies and Bachelor Buttons Not every garden writer alerts you to the fact that annuals can have seasons that are shorter than other choices. For places like Ohio which have hot summers, there are common annuals that only do well when our weather is cooler, such as in early summer. Those flowers sort of […]

Newest Postings Here

  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time
  • 3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees
  • Mid-Ohio Gardening Update

Finding your way home via the garden path


Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Visit For A Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • Wanelo

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings
Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening
What Is Wrong?

Go Fresh

Garden Journal

fine garden journal
Journal, Planner and Log Book

People’s Choice

1910 garden plan

3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees

posted in Landscape Design Know-How, Landscape Trees

Garden update

Mid-Ohio Gardening Update

posted in 2018, How's the weather?

All Season Garden Color with Bold Foliage Effects, Masterful Contrasts

posted in Garden design ideas, Landscape Design Know-How

saving money

Moneysaving Tips for Gardeners

posted in do as I say, Frugal Tips, gardening tips



Bonsai Trees

Stay updated!

Get all the latest tasty goodness straight to your inbox!

Footer

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Privacy, Etc.

Privacy Policy|Disclosure Policy

All rights reserved to their respective authors : Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Linking and using material attributed to the author is encouraged, ask for permission to use photos, please.

Copyright © 2019 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in