I've grown these. I bought 4" and 1 gal. plants and planted them in a narrow bed beside the house. They got half-day reflected light, half full sun. I usually let the seedlings stay were they came up in the bed. But while painting the house, I tried moving them when they were about 2"-4". They were not happy being transplanted and I think most, or all, died. They are probably a taproot plant, which tend to hate relocation. In the future, you might want to transfer them into individual pots very early on. They seem to be fine making the transition from pots to ground.

Tough to point to your plants' problem without the visual. What were the conditions you moved them from? Were they hardened off properly? Even full sun plants won't take having their tender foliage suddenly thrust under full sun conditions. And we have been experiencing some hot days recently. Some temporary shade over the transplants might be beneficial.

Thanks for the reply. There were no local nurseries that had them so I ordered seeds. I had them in a well lit but shady place that got about 2 hours of dappled sun a day and after they were about 2" tall I would move them into direct sun a couple of hours a day. Then I left them in their eventual (full sun) site for about a week. I watered them every other day or every day that seemed it would get really hot. Maybe I will try to shade them for another couple weeks.

I read somewhere recently that, when checking for need of water, you should check the root ball - NOT the soil outside the root ball, because the two will have different soils and will hydrate differently.

Here's the plants. You can see the discoloration. Sure hope they survive.

Those photos show two different plant species; I thought you were talking about two plantings of the Echium. Did I misunderstand?

The echium seedlings in the first photo show some stress on the older leaves, but not so much as to be unusual IMO. The new growth looks good and should produce a flush of growth as they settle in and the warmth of spring spurs them on. In the future, it is better to plant them individually, with more spacing. A very minimum of 2', with 3'-4' being my recommendation. These guys get big!

I also grow a few E. simplex, which has white flowers. If you are ever interested in giving some seed from them a try, let me know. I could send you some that was collected last fall, or gather some fresh later this year.

I got them from two nurseries. One should produce red spears, one blue.

I guess it's too late to separate them? Survival of the fittest?

Would love to try white ones too.

I'm going to start some more next year so, hopefully, have flowers every year.