Well, it's hardly stealth gardening, as this thing has been in the ground for two years now, but my beloved wife is no great friend to Echium wildprettii, AKA The Tower of Jewels. So the planting of one of these Canary Island biennials in my front garden has been something of a black ops project.
The first year, it sits decoratively, and unobtrusively, low. Then in the second it loses all sense of decorum and shoots ten feet into the air like something out of Dr. Seuss. And then, before it dies, it showers the ground with tens of thousands of annoyingly fertile seeds. It is also unremittingly vulgar, makes anyone who touches it itch and we really don't have the space to do it justice, but the bees and butterflies love it. And it's one of those collectors' plants that you grow because of the plant and in despite of what it does to your already pitiful excuse for a landscaping scheme.
If you live near by, come see it before it's over.
