I find it very annoying that violet and purple are so often referred to as blue, and photos touched up to make them bluer, though you can often tell when the photo just isn't color-balanced properly, as there's blue in the leaves as well. I love true blue flowers and don't much care for purple generally, but have bought a number of plants mail-order or not in bloom that were supposed to be blue and turned out to be purple. And believe me, I've asked in advance. "Oh yeah, it's blue - not purple." And then it's as purple as purple can be. Are people color-blind or did they just not learn their colors in kindergarten or since? Or do they just want to sell you a plant and don't care if you're going to like it?
My Favorite Blue In the Garden...What's Yours?
Perenniallyme
I totally agree with you. There are precious few true blue flowers and trying to find one will make you painfully aware of that! I like purple flowers but if I want blue I want BLUE! Blue flowers stop me in my tracks because of their rarity.
It's funny. I'm generally not a blue lover, i.e. I don't have blue in my house - walls, dishes, upholstery etc, but in flowers I just adore it.
here a few pix from yesterday...
1) Anchusa, see how the early bloom is pink, (sorry it was a bit breezy when pix was shot)
2) Just had to get a pix of the baby's breath (Gypsophila paniculata), it's an OMG 8 foot wide by 10 foot long and 45" tall, not sure if you can see a bloom of Clem. 'Prince Charles' (blue). Got cut back last fall so the clem is short this year but is the same as the pix with my name at the left, just a few years apart on the photos, but the BB has grown soooooo big.
3) Not blue but just for you Pam..lol. Left if Dianthus X Loveliness and Dianthus grationopolitanus Cheddar Pinks and in the back is Coreopsis grandiflora Sunray
4) Veronica spicata Sight Seeing Blue at 28"
5) a few seedlings of Larkspur
1 & 2) flax, Linum perenne Saphire and in the foreground is Penstemon strictus Rocky Mountain Blue at 30" (a deep blue)
3) not sure, think this is Iris Denver
4) Centaurea montana
5) Veronica Georgian Blue
This message was edited Jul 8, 2013 8:01 AM
Kathy,
That Centaurea montana is stunning! Love it!
I'm still over the moon about Pfg's blue pots in the blue garden - that's fantastic for people like me who are too incompetent to flower plants. I can have blue pots in the blue garden and yellow pots in the yellow garden and rock pots in the rocks garden!
Well, I did already have the pots, seemed like a natural, lol! Rock pots.... Hmmmmm... Hyper tufa?
I do love that linum, so refreshing! I'm beginning to crave something lighter for now. All my blues right now are pretty deep. I have the annual Plumbago in two of the blue pots, but it's not showing up well yet. (1)
The Platys have tiny buds, and the Veronica Sunny Border Blue should be in bloom by next weekend, they are close to the same color. (2, pic from last year). The old Platy in a different section is the first to bloom this year, and the biggest plant. (3)
I have a bunch of Salvias that have been blooming for a while now. The bluest is S Blue Hill, S Dwarf Blue Queen is a little shorter and deeper. (4&5). For some reason the camera shows the opposite. I went back and forth a few times to be sure, comparing.
As soon as the Platys and V SBBlue open, I'll know where to plant the rest of my stash-- lots from you, Kathy!
BTW, the update on the Verbascum Phoenicium is, none bloomed and a few were lost, but several made nice new healthy basal leaves... And today, at the last minute before we left, one had put up a 5" stalk with the most adorable white flowers on it!!! I was soooo surprised and happy to see it! I didn't have time to get my camera, much to my regret.... I wonder if the others will do the same, or wait til next year?
They might just bloom, I remember most never had stalks that I had dug, so they are going thru an adjustment period and might just suprise you like tha one today, cross your fingers!!! lol. Didn't I send just white???? I will be collecting seed from the others, already got the stalks cut and are drying now.. tough little buggers to open. Pinks, purple and lavender, but will be a mix...... Also noticed that I have 2 different blues on the Veronica spicata Sight Seeing Blue, one light and theother a deeper dark blue.... Kathy
Also btw, Kathy-that Gypsophiia is really stupendous! How did you do that?! It really, really loves you!
I haven't been too fond of Centaureas up to now, thought they were too sprawly and unkempt, but now I'm thinking they could be nice between the deep blues and the daylilies and tall grasses beyond. I like the idea of loosely linking the two areas, one very 'done,' the other much more wild.
My Veronica Georgia Blue seems a much deeper blue than yours. Here it's with Pulmonaria, also starts pink/blue, Forget-Me-Nots and Phlox divaricata. Could it just be a trick of the light in the pic?
We cross-posted...
Yes, I was only looking for white... I can't believe how lovely those little flowers are! My other Verbascum flower stalks are so packed you don't appreciate the individual blossoms.
How do you think your Veronicas morphed into two colors? Did you start with more than one plant? Blues are soooo hard...
I realize my blue garden is going to be a lot more purple than I had thought... Even the Platys, the whole reason for having a separate bed, look more purple to me than they did last year, lol!
Yes sometimes years can make a difference in color....Moisture, cold winters, or even warmer winters, all enviromentals things can adjust colors to some extent. Mope the Veronicas were grown from seed obtained from T&M Seed years ago, it's just a variant in the seed I guess.. And I have several groupings of the Veronica (7-11 plants in each....I also notices in some plants the flowers were longer than others, some short squat blooms many though were long inflorecences and the tips were leaning over a bit til rhe flowers bloomed their way up the stalk... Guess one of these years I should correct the grouping by putting the same plants together, also color.... Ya, I'll get to that REAL SOON!!!! LOL.....
Ok, kiddos want the puter, will try to post some pix later as I got a few yesterday but are at home...Kathy
To be more serious, I think the Gentians have the most stunning blue. I remember the first time one bloomed in my old garden in Belfast... I was walking past the tiny rockery and something caught my eye. I thought it was a sapphire dropped from some expensive brooch, but it was Gentiana septemfida.
I'm currently holding my breath with G acaulis and G clusii surviving in the rock garden - then G septemfida, G sino-ornata, G calycosa and G kaufmanniana waiting in the wings.
Here is my favourite, and one-and-only, BLUE blue; the Plumbago. I don't think the Platycodons qualify as blue, but the shade of purple sure has a lovely blue tint to it!
I'm afraid I have to agree... The ceratastigmoides is gorgeous, and the Platycodons are not really blue :-(
The pics are from last year. It seemed so blue then, not so now. But I still love it...
I love the Plumbago as well, very nice. I wish I got the blue Platcodon, but instead I bought the pink this summer. It said it's more pink in light shade so I planted it there but its very washed out; I just got the first bloom today.
I did those from seed this spring, Perlmutterschale. i saw a pic on DG somewhere, that pale silvery pink really glows out. She had it mixed with a couple of white, so do I in pic 2, maybe the contrast made it seem more pink? Mine are planted in the garden now, but may not bloom again until next year.
Pfg, I looked for a post from Perlmutterschale to see what you were responding to, but didn't find it. Can you clear up my confusion?
Thanks,
LAS
Sequoiadendron4 made a comment about the pale pink Platycodon, I was naming it, as I grew it from seed this winter. Sorry not to have been more clear.
So true, the Platys are not blue, but I love 'em just the same. =) (I just happen to love my Plumbago more!)
< =D
I love 'em all! My plumbago isn't blooming yet...
Neither is my Plumbago from last year. The ones I bought at the nursery are starting to bloom a little though..
Mmmm... Instant gratification. Like my Delphiniums. I wonder what I'll have in bloom next year at this time... The pots?! ;-)
Hi Pam!
Is this the picture you mean? Good observation. I do think that the white makes the pink more pink. I never would have noticed if you had not said it!
Donna
Ooooh Pretty!!! I'd like 7 of each, please. =)
Donnamack, what is the smaller pink flower in the left of the picture?
LAS
Polemonium 'Heavenly Habit'
I ordered six plants of 'Pagan Dance' last fall. THis spring, three bloomed and none were 'Pagan Dance'. Replacements will be sent by the company this fall, but the three that did bloom are very prety. They were probably a mis-labelled mix. Here's one that is truly lovely.
That's salvia coccinea Coral Nymph. It's a pink salvia that I love to grow as an accent to other pink plants. The white is Snow Nymph. It comes up so quickly that I grow it as an annual, but it is perennial in warmer zones.
And Speedie, I grew all those platycodons from seed. I germinated a bunch of white and perle ones, and got lots of each. I find that the one I can't seem to germinate is the tall blue, and happily that was installed in my garden. It encouraged me to try the other colors.
DonnaMack, Oh my, yes! That is exactly the picture! You have no idea what you started! I fell in love with P Permutterschale, tracked down the seeds, started them last winter-- re-designed a whole section!-- fell in love with them again when they bloomed indoors... And now I'm patiently waiting to see if they do it again this year or if I have to wait!
How wonderful, Pam. I adore these flowers - I tend to like "twists" on classic plants. And a "mother of pearl" platycodon! What fun.
Yes, they should come back, although the white ones seem to come back most strongly. Watch for tiny seedlings. Don't deadhead them all, and you will find them. For years I was careful to deadhead them, and once I got a little sloppy, I found these tiny seedlings, which serve as replacement plants (the rabbits used to nip some of mine).
And it's true, blue platycodons are really rather blue purple. They pop with pink too. In the second picture, a viburnum dentatum tended to overshadow my blue platys, but they grew anyway and, amazingly enough, didn't need staking. This is the classic grandiflorus.
This message was edited Jul 11, 2013 12:46 PM
Oh Donna, what a stunning display in pic 2!!!!
Stu, sorry you didn't get what you ordered but that one is pretty, too.
Thank you Speedie!
FLStu: That is a gorgeous Polemonium. I planted one this year, not sure of the variety but it is blue, and it's beautiful too. I'm surprised at the long bloom period.
FLStu. That poleminium is stunning for sure!!! I'm going to try to find that one!
Polemonium also is available in white and a peach colored flower. Here in the Rockies the blue form grows wild.
Also for those unaware the blue form comes in a variegated leaf too, leaves are pretty but I don't seem to get that many flowers on mine, tho not sure if due to the drought that has plagued us for several years now... Fingers are crossed it ends this year!!!!
Another native of my area, Penstemon palmerii, 48"^x40">, and the only Penstemon which is fragrant..
That Penstemon is gorgeous. Out west has cool wildflowers. Here, ours are kind of crummy, at least all the ones that grow freely along the roadways. The only cool one I like is Chickoree and that is actually blue as well
I love seeing that P Palmerii... How old is your plant? Mine is growing, but not so fast...
Pam, I'm thinking I planted that 2 years ago this fall from a quart sized pot. This year it really filled out. I just need to get other flowers around it so it doesn't look soo bare and alone, (I planted annuals around it and not but 2 or 3 sprouted....) What's amazing is how sturdy it is, even in the shall we say breezes here on the prairie...lol. About another 2 1/2 weeks of taking care of the gkids before school starts and then I can begin planting again, hope to have the back yard cleared by then, hahahah..Ok, I'll try. Oh, if I were you, (just sayin), put a buch of sand in the backfill (mixed in), maybe even half and half.. This grows wild in the regions of Colorado and New Mexico (only 15-20" of natural precipt. a year, hench the need for the sand, I wanna make sure it lives for you gal...lol. Especially after it took soo long for you to get one going.....Soo proud of my baby!!!!...lol.
It's such a thrill seeing everyones photos, don't think I'll ever tire of it...Keep 'em coming folks!!!!! Kathy