I am a gardening novice, stocking a new garden on the east coast of
Scotland. I have about 12" of light topsoil, with sand below that, so
the site is well drained. We normally get a fair bit of rain, although
it has been dry for most of the last month and I have had to put the
sprinkler on once or twice a week lately.

I have always admired Sea Holly or eryngium and have bought 2 in the
last few months. One, a low growing type called Picos Blue, is doing
well. The other, a taller looking type called Jos Eijking, looked OK for
a couple of weeks then suddenly took poorly. One day it was developing
good looking flowers at the top of its stem, a few days later a 4"
section of stem just below the flower heads had turned brown and flopped
over. A few of the leaves lower down have turned brown as well, but the
rest of the plant looks OK so far.

This happened after a spell of wet and windy weather. Could it be wind
damage? I can't see any external breaks in the stem. If it is wind
damage, will it harm the plant to cut it back now? If it doesn't sound
like wind damage, any suggestions about what it might be?

If it survives, I have read somewhere that it needs to be "protected
from winter wet". Any suggestions about how to do that, short of taking
it indoors?

TIA

Steve