Something unexpected for your garden! The enchanting Globe Thistle perennials (Echinops ritro) are super spikey and highly textural bundles of unique character for your landscape! Don’t let their intimidating look chase you away! These may look like they can bite, but the effect they lend to your garden and your floral bouquets is profound!
Producing spiny gray-green foliage and upright growth, the summer-to-fall balls of spiky purple-blue florets appear in perfectly round pompoms atop their protective mounds of fine-textured foliage! This doesn’t scare local bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects either! They’ll gladly arrive to sip nectar all season long! Then in the fall, you and the songbirds will enjoy the seedheads for their winter interest, dried floral décor, and free bird food!
Globe Thistles are native to Europe, Asia, Mongolia and Turkey and their leathery leaves and adaptations to Mediterranean climates, heat, and xeric poor soil attest to their hardiness! Thriving here in the US throughout USDA growing zones 3 to 8, these perennials can grow 3 to 4 feet in height and spread 2 to 2 and a half feet in width. It’s hard to imagine that these pokey pompoms are related to Sunflowers and Mums!
Planting and Application:Globe Thistles have a very contemporary and modern appearance! Adding their unique form and texture to accent your gardens both as a singular specimen among softer blooms or en mass as an outstanding focal point! Formal rows spaced in precision, or informal groupings among Rock Gardens and in a funky perennial border, either way, these prickly lovelies will fit right in!
Either pair with fine textured Russian Sage and Salvias, frilly Yarrow, or Scabiosa. Or go a bit crazy by planting with other like-minded blooms like Alliums, bold Coneflowers, and Red Hot Poker Plants. Create a modern cottage garden, Sensory Garden, or enjoy unique cut flowers in your cutting garden, anywhere in the sun where pollinators will flock to your landscape! Spiky Iris foliage, Yucca, Pineapple Lily, and other sun-loving textural lovelies welcome Globe Thistles among their ranks!
Prickly Purple/Blue Round Flower Clusters
Spiky Blue-Green Hairy Foliage
Cut Flowers, Dried Décor & Winter Interest
Pollinator & Bird Friendly!
Long-Lasting Texture, Xeric, Color & Unique Accents!
#ProPlantTips for Care:Globe Thistles are easily grown in a variety of soils but must be well-drained and not too fertile. They do best in full sun but can also tolerate partial shade and afternoon shade, especially in the hottest of their preferred growing zones. Provide moderate moisture and mulched beds for new plants, but back off on watering after they’re established. The plant is tolerant of drought, deer, and rabbits. Prune in late fall unless you wish to leave the seedheads up for birds and winter interest, and clean mounds in early spring instead.
Full Sun & Some Partial Shade
Moderate to Low Moisture Needs Once Established
Excellently Drained Soil – Tolerates Poor Sandy Sites
Clean Mounds In The Fall
Rarely Bothered by Deer, Rabbits, Drought & Saline Conditions
From the Greek ‘echinos’ meaning hedgehog, the Globe Thistle will add its prickly beauty and unique texture to your landscape without requiring much in return! Order your own unusual perennial plants today from Nature Hills!
