Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Asteraceae
Native Range: Central and eastern Europe, Asia
Zone: 3 to 8
Height: 3.00 to 4.00 feet
Spread: 2.00 to 2.50 feet
Bloom Time: July to September
Bloom Description: Blue
Sun: Full sun
Water: Dry to medium
Maintenance: Low
Flower: Showy, Good Cut, Good Dried
Attracts: Butterflies
Tolerate: Rabbit, Drought, Dry Soil, Shallow-Rocky Soil
Garden locations
Culture
Easily grown in average, dry to medium, well-drained soils in full sun. Tolerates a wide range of soils, including poor, infertile, dry ones, as long as well-drained. Avoid rich soils. This is a taprooted plant that is difficult to divide or transplant.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Echinops ritro is a clump-forming, 4-foot tall plant with golf ball sized blue flower heads atop stiff, rigid stems clad with deeply lobed, dark green, thistle-like foliage. Globular, thistle-like, deep steel blue flower heads (1-2” diameter) bloom at the stem tops in summer. Coarse, spiny, deeply-dissected, gray-green leaves are white tomentose beneath. Basal leaves grow to 6-8” long, but stem leaves grow shorter.
Genus name comes from the Greek words echinos meaning a hedgehog and ops meaning appearance in reference to the flower heads.