Onosma and Lindelofia

[McDonough]

No luck with Onosma at my end...sowed seeds of two species and neither germinated...they would probably die over winter here anyway so no great loss.

Or, possibly croak in spring... above in this thread I show photos of an Omosma species from Turkey, weeks ago I cleaned up all of the blown in oak and magnolia leaf debris around the plant, now after yet another 3-day marathon of pouring rain and gale force winds, the plant looks a sorry lot now, like a drowned rat, many of the terminal rosettes no longer showing signs of life.  A couple young Helichrysum plants I had in pots looked great up until last week... now all the terminal shoots are mush.  The taller moonlight yellow Onosma planted on a sand enbankment still looks fine.

[Lori S.]

I grew Onosma euboica from seed last year - another yellow-flowered one, apparently - and they have wintered over successfully.  This one is evergreen here, unlike O. stellulatum.

[McDonough]

I grew Onosma euboica from seed last year - another yellow-flowered one, apparently - and they have wintered over successfully.  This one is evergreen here, unlike O. stellulatum.

I grow three Onosma currently, O. spa, and another O. spa, and the O. spa from Turkey... and all three are evergreen here.  Even the Turkish one that I mentioned got beatup with the incessant rain storm, managed to survive the onslaught and seems to be liking the last two 80 F (25 C) days.

[McDonough]

Following up from a photo of a small purchased plant of Paracaryum racemosum, the plant overwintered and is in flower now; a stunning blue color, caught me by surprise when I chanced upon it in bloom.  The first photo is taken at dusk, the photo on the right in bright midday sunshine.  It's a small affair, only about 8" tall.  Some of my other borags (3 Onosma species) did not survive the winter after being in the garden for 4-5 years.

[Lori S.]

Wow.... I like!!

[Tim Ingram]

Paracaryum - I've once or twice seen the name but what a great plant! The borage family seems to contain no weeds. The little annual Omphalodes linifolia (often sent to the seed exchanges as luciliae or luciliae alba) is a persistant favourite. Onosmas never seem to keep going long here and I haven't grown them for a few years but I shall try again in a sand or crevice type bed (they are amongst the worst of all plants to extract seed from - but borage seed is particularly fascinating...)

[Hoy]

The borage family has never been any success to me -  except the common borage (Borago officinalis) which I had in the kitchengarden for several years. Even if it is an annual several plants popped up everywhere in many, many years and grew to immense proportions.

Paracaryum racemosum seems to be a plant worth trying anyway!

[Spiegel]

I've posted this elsewhere but it seems to belong on this thread.  All the Onosma alboroseum I've grown in the garden have had white flowers, with the ends turning purple-pink in varying degrees.  This one is a really lovely color form, the ends of the flowers  coral-pink.  I have some self-sown seedlings coming along and hopefully, it seeded true.  These plants become very woody quite early and I have no idea how else to propagate them.  Has anyone had any success with cuttings?  I'd really like to keep this color form going.

[Fermi]

 The borage family seems to contain no weeds.

A few thousand Aussie farmers would like to disagree with you Tim! Patterson's curse is a form of Echium which infests thousands of hectares of arable land. Very pretty when in flower, but dangerous to horses and very invasive. The Borags due well for us in Central Victoria, but some do too well. A few years ago we got a plant of Nonea lutea beacuse it looked so much like a primrose coloured Pulmonaria. I was pleased to see how well it prospered but the next year hundreds of seedlings emerged and I realised we could've had the yellow equivalent of Patterson's Curse! Not prepared for the emergence of "Fermi's Curse" to take off from our garden I spent the next few years weeding it out - but every now and then new seedlings appear!
Onosma sp (pale yellow) did well in our rock garden for years but never set any seed and I've now got some seedlings of Onosma nana to try.
The one seedling I raised of Paracaryum died in the wet weather last year
cheers
fermi