Irrigation in winter is rarely ever advised or necessary (cooler temps and more rainfall) so not really surprising the Echium is suffering from root rot. NO MORE WATER!! And hope for the best.,,,,,but I wouldn't hold my breath.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) In my Mediterranean zone 9b climate, we are far away from Winter. Days are often hot here now.

In any case, I am backing off the water.

An established Echium ONLY needs irrigation in the hottest, driest periods of summer and even then infrequently. Regardless of your zone, in North America, winter occurs between November and March and everywhere - even higher zones - temps are cooler and rainfall more plentiful. You just do not need to water during those months. Period.

We are in a drought. GardenGal is not.

Too bad if you follow her advice.

We are in a drought. GardenGal is not.

You think?? Sorry........wrong!! The SF Bay area experienced the wettest January in 25 years, In fact, rainfall totals have been so high across the whole state this current rain year - as much 130% over normal levels - that it is no longer considered to be under drought conditions at all.

With westes' over amended, water retentive soil, it is too bad if he doesn't follow my advice!!

And since you claim to be so knowledgeable about these matters, I assume you know that the PNW also experiences a routine drought? Every year, in fact. Just not in winter.

But the facts on the ground here are that we had two long hot spells in March and almost no rain.

I grew up in the PNW. Did you grow up in the SFBA?

Did today’s rain perk it up?

@David Gray No, it no longer responds to water at all. It clearly has something like a fungal illness, and I think my theory about the tap root is probably correct.

Wow, how did I miss this fun thread? LOL.

FWIW I've never seen anyone be able to grow the Macaronesian Echiums on the east coast as pot plants. I tried a couple times, hoping I could keep them in my garage greenhouse, and they'd die as soon as we had a summer rainfall with dewpoints > 70F. That being said, the fact they thrive along the south coast of England means they aren't insanely sensitive to those conditions, because it can actually be a little muggy there sometimes, vs. the northern CA coast or PNW.

Therefore with this one I'm saying: too much water with a too moisture retentive soil, and perhaps the roots warming up more that it liked because it was in a pot in the first place. Why would you not just plant them outside in your climate?

I've just been in Devon where I saw plenty of these. All growing in the ground. Humidity was ca. 80%. And it rained three days out of three. Temperature around 62f.

"Humidity in North Devon today ranges from a peak of around 93% in the early morning to a daytime low of roughly 65% in the mid-afternoon. It is expected to average around 78% throughout the day, with a daytime high temperature of approximately 14°C to 18°C. Met Office +1"

Thanks Floral. FWIW, % humidity is an essentially meaningless metric when we're talking about either human comfort, or plant adaptation. Anywhere in the world that rains has % humidity of 100 at some point, because that's what rain is! Dewpoint is what really matters, alas I can only relate, myself, to ones in degrees F because that's what we know. 40s or 50s are super comfortable, 60s are transitional, and 70s are unbearably humid. In coastal northern CA where Westes is, DPs above the 50s are very rare, but do happen from time to time.

Here's a chart from the COPD foundation.

The waters off southern England are only about 5F warmer than those off the coast of CA at the peak of late summer, but that's probably enough to make quite a difference. Air dewpoints tend to couple closely to water temps in maritime climates; the September night in Brighton I went on a quixotic journey to find more comfortable sleeping accommodations definitely felt like DPs in the mid 60s to me, which was close to what water temps to. (if you have an extraordinary memory, maybe you will remember if 2010 was a warm year, and maybe water temps were running higher than normal?) Just a little too muggy for a yank used to AC...I'm sure people thought I was nuts as I finally checked into one of the sea front hotels at 11pm or so. (had started in a B&B that was a dank basement with a window that opened only an inch or so, it was horrid. Then a hotel tried to tell me the room had "AC" - it was just a machine that blew air over a pile of ice. Truly like a scene from Fawlty Towers. Then I found a place that would allow me to open the windows a few inches, if I signed a waiver...and maybe the room had a ceiling fan too? Can't remember anymore. By about 1am there had been some mixing down in the atmosphere and it was just cool enough for me to sleep. Maritime, high latitude, and especially, mountainous climates, of course, have that cooler air in reserve at elevation. Around here, the middle of summer, we don't get a lot of mixing down, usually. OTOH I found it quite dramatic in the Italian Lakes region, for example...I had a similar panic there about whether my non-air conditioned room in Stresa would be comfy enough to sleep at night...well, no problem. It's like a giant AC gets turned on in that place at night!)

Anyhoo, back to the matter at hand...let's see, North Devon, last month...

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IILFRA31/graph/2026-05-31/2026-05-31/monthly

Wunderground conveniently (for us) shows figures in F, I'm sure you can switch it over to C somehow. Ilfracombe hit a max DP of 68F in your recent heatwave! Yikes, that's pretty darn muggy. Like...northern Maryland typical summer weather, not during a heatwave when we go into the low 70s DPs. I'd say if your summer carried on like that for weeks on end, it would be curtains for Echiums, and a bunch of other stuff too. But now you're (or that station, anyhow) back to a much more reasonable DP of 48F.

FINAL EDIT: actually if I switch to chart view, we see that 68F DP was a peak on a day w/an average of 58F. probably right after it rained following a heat wave? The next day had a whole day DP average of 61F...highest for the entire month. High for a maritime climate, but hardly intolerable. If you don't have AC, which you probably don't, you were still probably comfortable sleeping at night w/windows open. US east coast south of NYC has long stretches of average DPs well above 65F, which is why we need AC.

Ha...a final caveat. That actually I sort of lied when I seemingly implied DP was the *only* factor in human comfort and plant adaptation. It and temperature work together. Take this chart from Berkeley CA last summer

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCABERKE306/table/2025-09-30/2025-09-30/monthly

9/8/2025 77.2 °F 67.2 °F 60.6 °F 66.3 °F 61.9 °F 58.0 °F

So it had a high DP of 66...vs. average of only 61F...that stations peak DP for the *entire month*. Is a DP of 66 a little muggy? Sure. And you can see on the line plot - it was peaking WITH the heat of the day - kind of the opposite of what you might expect. (because, again, maritime climates can get mixing down at night) But the high that day was only 77F! All the gorgeous exotic subtropical plants in the Bay Area aren't going to fold over that! OTOH, we have plenty of days here in summer with a DP of 66, well into the 80s if not 90s. (like I said, that would be a relatively comfy DP reading, for us)

So to be complete...it's temperature and DP that combine to tell you the story of human comfort, and plant survival. (where, TBH, DP is just a proxy for how favorable the soil is for things like Phytophthora to develop, but now I really do digress!) The Canary Islands, at the fog layer where the Echiums grow, probably have DPs around 60F or even a little higher...and plenty of moisture in the air (and soil) if you hike strenuously up there, you can probably develop quite a sweat, versus hiking, say, Mount Diablo in summer, in NorCAL - but it just can never get much hotter than that DP in those zones. There's no atmospheric mechanism for DP AND temps to skyrocket like they do in much of the CONUS during summer.

Floral - just to confirm my "uncomfortable humidity in SW England" theories - haha - would you say the only times it has gotten muggy enough to be unpleasant to sleep at night w/windows open, are probably in August and even September? That would be my guess, based on those being the months with the warmest coastal water temps.

I haven't been there since 2010 but I am now reminded that of the times I went there, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2010, I never remember experiencing residential AC in the UK. Nor needing it!

Can't say it's too muggy to sleep very often. In fact, I don't think I've ever experienced that. Even when humidity is high, like at the moment, it's not particularly hot with it. I've never seen AC in a home, only in businesses. In our house we just open the windows.

Today where I am: the current RealFeel® Temperature is 48° (Chilly) based on observed conditions including 91% humidity, 93% cloud cover, a UV index of 0, and winds of 13 mph.

Right that makes sense - I go back to my admission that people in Brighton probably thought I was some American nutter for dragging my luggage around at 10pm looking for a new hotel for the night. Since you don't have residential AC in the UK, you're probably a little more conditioned (no pun intended!) to sleeping when it's slightly muggy.

On my first vacation to the intermountain west as a kid, we couldn't believe that one late afternoon in Montana, the July temp was over 90F, but it actually felt chilly in the shade. Because the DP was probably somewhere in the 40s. Thus a relative humidity of 20% or less. Something that only happens in Maryland in winter, or the very driest autumn days. Conversely where I live, there are sometimes strange days that are overcast, and only an air temp around 81 or 82F. But the DP is roughly 75F if not higher. When you go outside, for a moment it actually doesn't seem very hot, because you're not hit by a blast of radiant heat. But the moment you try to even walk 10 feet...you feel the suffocating humidity.

@UpperBayGardener (zone 7) It was planted outside, with full sun exposure, in a raised bed. I think the soil was drying out in sun without a mulch, and I was overcompensating by overwatering.

Actual inspection of the dead plant's root system found almost zero internal rot. The stem is also perfectly clean. The surface of the plant was mushy, but it was only at the skin level. I am sure it was fungal, but I have never seen a presentation like this.

Maybe @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) knows something about fungal infections that attack the surface layer of a root and crown and stem?

@UpperBayGardener (zone 7) From what I have read, Echiums actually love humidity. Their leaf system absorbs water from morning mists, in the forest edge, on islands, or in sea locations.

This is actually part of the problem in growing them in a hot Mediterranean climate like mine, without occasional shade during hot sunny days. These plants have evolved to take in some of their water through a huge leaf with fuzzy protrusions that hold water. They effectively get zero water through the leaves in my setup, and I was overloading the root system.

I was shocked by how small the root system was on my plant. The leaves were huge, and the stem was already over eight feet high. The transpiration load associated with that leaf structure must have overwhelmed this plant, which had its roots in the upper 18 inches of soil, which, without mulch, must have rapidly dried out.

I can take photos of the root system if you are curious.

" From what I have read, Echiums actually love humidity. Their leaf system absorbs water from morning mists, in the forest edge, on islands, or in sea locations.

This is actually part of the problem in growing them in a hot Mediterranean climate like mine, without occasional shade during hot sunny days."

Yes and that's why I was distinguishing conditions in the mist belts of Macaronesia with an (admittedly extreme) comparison in the Bay area. My point was simply Mt. Diablo - not far from the sea in the grand scheme of things - looks nothing like similar elevation parts of the windward Canary Islands. Right along the coasts you do have fogs, but also plenty of sunny weather. Thus tree ferns are naturalizing on Madeira, at least, but not anywhere in coastal California.

This town is not even really in the true fog belt, and you can see it's quite a bit less sunny than San Francisco.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Crist%C3%B3bal_de_La_Laguna#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate

(Also has never had a freeze, of course, while both San Fran, and even LA, have. Even Catalina Island has a record low of 29F!)

But back to my overarching discussion of DP and temp, yes Echiums love humidity within the narrow climate confines of their native habitat. Never too cold obviously - but probably never as clear and sunny for long stretches as all but the foggiest (Ft. Bragg, I guess?) parts of coastal and coastal adjacent NorCal.

Anyhoo, maybe I lost some part of the thread, I admit I often do only skim them before pontificating LOL, but it appeared to be in a pot in the first pic you posted. I would definitely try one again since they are relatively common in your area. If you keep it in a pot, keep the pot shaded and don't overwater it. Is Annie's Annuals back in full swing as a source of things like that?

I have had many plants die of root rot w/o visible signs of such on the roots. In fact I'd say visible evidence is the exception, not the norm!

@UpperBayGardener (zone 7) That pot you see in the picture has no bottom, and it was used to put a rock mulch around the crown, to prevent bark mulch in the bed from rotting out the crown. I'm going to transition to rock mulch everywhere, and the top 12 inches of the soil layer is going to be custom-made mineral-rich soil.

I'm still learning with this plant. I guess if I ever reached a bottleneck, I could set up a mister and spray them at midnight and let them absorb the moisture overnight.