Garden Photo of the Day

Feeling Blue

Flowers in blue hues for every garden

There is something about blue flowers. Perhaps it is because they remind us of clear, sunny, summer skies. Maybe it is because blue is such a cool, soothing color. Or maybe it is just because blue flowers can be hard to find, so they stand out amid all the pinks and yellows and purples on offer. Whatever the reason, blue is many people’s favorite color of flower, so today the photos are showing off some of the best blue blooms.

Summer gentian (Gentiana septemfida, Zones 4–7). The gentians are famous for their brilliant blue flowers, but many of them are fussy and difficult to grow. This species is one of the best. Asking for nothing but plenty of sun and decent drainage, it covers itself with these bright blue flowers in late summer and early fall.

Blue corydalis are another of those plants that are fussy in many climates, but the most widely adaptable seems to be Corydalis turtschaninovii (Zones 4–8). It is a little bulb that comes up and blooms in the spring about the same time as the daffodils and then goes totally dormant for the summer.

Butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea, Zones 11–12 or annual) is a small vine that is easily grown as an annual in cold climates. Thriving in heat, it produces these incredibly true-blue flowers all summer long. Apparently the flowers are also used to make a blue tea in Thailand!

There are plenty of blue (or blue-ish) spring bulbs, but one of the best is camass (Camassia quamash, Zones 4–10). One stem of these flowers is beautiful, but they’re really best grown as they are seen growing in the wild in western North America—big masses and waves, all blooming together.

Grecian windflowers (Anemone blanda, Zones 4–8) come in white and pink selections, but I always choose the blue. Spring flowering bulbs, they do best under deciduous trees, where they happily multiply to make a better display each year.

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Comments

  1. garden1953 04/30/2018

    Love that all but the one can be grown in my zone. I'll be adding them to my wish list. Love them. Thanks!

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    meander_michaele 04/30/2018

    Ahh, yes, we gardeners are often our happiest when we've got a good case of "the blues"... and the blues can range from light blue to deep purply blue. Right now, my garden is rockin' the blues with Siberian iris, tall bearded iris, the clematis 'H.F.Young' and 'The President' and the soft new growth of dwarf 'Montgomery' blue spruce. Yep, I'm positively ecstatic over having "the blues".

  3. Chris_N 04/30/2018

    Another bulb is scilla or Siberian squill. Its small flowers rang from light to deep blue. A bonus is they are not fussy as long as they get spring sunlight and will slowly spread. I decided I had to get some after walking past a yard the lawn of which was so full of scilla that it looked like a pond.

  4. user-7017435 04/30/2018

    Good morning, Thank you for this post with more blue suggestions. This winter has been brutal on my Yellow/Blue garden leaving big empty spaces to fill. Gentiana has been a disappointment with only one out of five surviving past the 1st year in my zone 7 garden. Thank you & good luck, Joe

  5. erikgrobberts 08/03/2018

    Gardening is one of my hobbies. I really like this blue flowers. It is very beautiful and it will make the garden look amazing. I am planning to plant some of this in my garden. I am a writer at best essay and I don't get much time to take care of my plants but I manage to do. Thank you so much for sharing this post. I loved this a lot. There are many articles in this blog which has written very effectively. Keep sharing more.

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