Sea Holly flowers provide a unique fascinating addition to your garden with their spiny-toothed leaves and clusters of teasel-like blossoms making them a great plant for difficult situations – and ideal for attracting butterflies!
Offering versatility with their wide range of growing conditions, they make excellent dried flowers. Native to the Mediterranean, they generally grow anywhere from 45-90 cm height with a 30 cm width.
Their green or silvery-blue stems give way to green or blue cones surrounded by spiky silver, white, green, blue or violet bracts, which bloom from summer right through to autumn.
Sea holly are tolerant of drought, winds, salt sprays – thriving in full sun and moist soil with good drainage, prefering sandy soil.
Choose your position for permanancy – they do not transplant easy, due to their long taproot.
Place young plants in holes that are a few inches wider and deeper, than their current root system.
Seeds can be sown directly in the garden, though they may not bloom the first year. The seeds require a warm moist stratification for one month, followed by one month of cold moist stratification.
Once established Sea Holly plants are relatively carefree and don’t require much in the way of watering, except during long droughts.
Theres no need to fertilise as refraining will keep the plants more compact and less droopy.
Dead-head by pinching or cutting off spent flowers, encouraging additional blooming. Cut off the flower stems, once blooming period ends in autumn, allowing the evergreen leaves to remain.
