Misty blues
My ever-fragile hope for true blue in the garden is a bit dashed this morning. In late April, I sprinkled two sowings of “Love in a Mist” (Nigella damascene). The mix promised "Miss Jekyll Bend" 
Watching the Nigella patches all week, I knew that today would yield a bloom or two. In the wings behind the velvet curtains of Cardinal Richelieu, awaiting cues, should be: sky, water, and Oxford-cloth blue flowers.
Never mind that this Gallica rose bloomed several weeks ago: the dusky-mauve is printed in my mind’s eye. A gardener must tolerate sub par timing in the garden plot. I still see the contrast: several shades of blue kissing mauve-purple rose petals. Sigh. Pink "happened." Nigella borrowed a wrapper from that crafty rose. What I picked this morning is a paper-white, tipped-pink puff. Dear little bloom, that would be perfect to mark day one of a baby girl. But, alas, not blue.
Cornflower buttons nearby, adopted from a friend, are a deep French blue. Around the cornflower wands, bloom a first flush of Cosmos in carmine and red. Madder-pink butterfly weed is about to spread an umbel landing-pad for Monarchs and Swallowtails. I hope this saturated cornflower blue stays long enough to foil the magenta-mauve that these neighbor flowers sport. I would like to post a cornflower image from a Library of Congress glass negative that dates from the turn of the century but rights are unclear. However, you can visit this Library of Congress Web Exhibit and search on “cornflower.” Taken along Russian Railways, these meadow shots feature wildflowers in Central Europe. Photographer and scientist, Prokudin-Gorskii's (1863-1944) work amazes still. Our love affair with blue, and the charming Batchelor Button endures. Instead I post this image: 
Why not a cornflower photgraph? The lovely cyan-blue does not "adhere" to film. For that you need this illustration from William Curtis (1746-1799) in his charming print series: (More blues notes planned, in the bed and the blog.) I plan to sow flax and blue larkspur in the fall, and again in spring. These tasks support my blue quest. I await details from a gardening buddy who makes Jekyll-like beds in the harshest of Zone 3 subregions – the cold prairie steppe of Nothern Minnesota. She has a delphinium tale, with additional blue notes.
Images: Seed Packet from Botanial Interests Seed Co. Print posted at Frechmann Herbanium website at the University of Wisconsin.
MinxterBloom
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Reader Comments (8)
Hi, CP! I love blue. My nigella are blue, but unfortunately are mostly buried now under lumber (they're next to a fence and weren't up yet when my husband piled it there). I have columbine which is more purple than blue, and cormflowers from a wildflower mix - a lovely stand of deep blue, and another of mixed colors - pink, light purple - which was not engineered by me, but a lovely accident. A flower related to cornflowers, centaurea montana (Mountain Bluet), has gone wild and invasive - I'm pulling it out all over the yard. I love the flower, which is deep, electric blue surrounded by purple - but enough is enough and its charms have faded.
Oh dear - wrote too fast - the centaurea montana has a purplish center surrounded by electric blue fringed petals. And I used to have some lovely light blue irises, and some dark blue and black irises - but they've either disappeared or stopped blooming. Well, and then I try every year to get the Heavenly Blue morning glories to bloom - they literally take my breath away because I feel like I've got a piece of the sky within reach. And lobelia - this year I have blue lobelia started - and a light lavendar lobelia that is blooming alongside a dark purple sweet potato vine, that has a flower the same color (another happy coincidence). I keep looking for a dark purple trailing lobelia that I swear was available many years ago.
True blue so easily turns to bluer than blue in zone 3. Nothing reinforces the gardening rule that background is as important as foreground than my "Ikea Blue" delphinium. First, I must note for my southern gardening friends that I truly appreciate how fortunate I am to have plopped a plant in a brand new "bed" of unimproved soil and have bloom, bloom, bloom in great waves for more than a month. However, the poor delphie is sited with nothing to anchor it in the landscape. The perovskia planted nearby will one day engulf it, and soften with its silver leaves, while daisies (really wild asters) and queen anne's lace will help the delphinium pop at twilight, But for now it screams blue against a backrgound of water and sky that is so far distant it is almost no background at all. Viewed from the opposite direction it is backed by a little too distant deep red house.Ack! A red, white, and blue garden. What a reminder that a garden's first years are full of stunning surprises. Some not so welcome.
On the other side of the little red cabin, which begs for a name, is a shade garden in its second year. Moss hugs the rocks heaped around an old hand pump and lamium tumbles around ferns while softening the edges of the walk. Hostas grow unsullied by slugs and I have finally found success with columbine, both wild in pink and yellow and cultivated in deep purple blue. The true blue, lovely, glowing Jacob's Ladder is a fine plant for being such an afterthought from the clearance table at big box o' plants. I have heavenly blue morning glory vines in three different sunny spots and just hope they have time to put on a display before frost. (In NoVA they'd be tumbling over the fence and into the neighbors' overclipped arbor vitae by now.) I have filled a few open spots with pink impatiens with a coral eye. Some little beasty has been dining on them and I'm not sure they'll be offered a spot again next year. But, when the life cycle of whatever is snacking moves on to the next phase they will have their late summer growth spurt and I will invite them once again, if only for the last weeks before frost turns them to mush.
A few Blue pictures for you. Sorry about the correct name for the wild delphinium like flower. It grows high in the mountains near Rock Lake. If I had my books...nope, only my faulty memory is with me at work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62628983@N00/
Don't ask me about the lovely blue of the forget me not. I have not forgotten the colour nor the seedy habit. A perfect flower with an imperfect seeding habit.
More blues:
Siberian Iris - some nice light and medium blue varieties. I have some with a small light blue flower, with yellow and white falls (I think). Also some darker blue, but they haven't bloomed in a while because they're in too much shade. Siberian iris leaves turn a lovely toasty brown in fall. Mine are too crowded - need to do something about them...
Hydrangea - mine is some sort of lacecap, blue blooms. It's a young plant that gets lost in other foliage, but may be more noticeable this year if I whack the Japanese anemones (which are lovely, but out of hand).
Agapanthus - I haven't had much luck growing agapanthus, which comes in some nice blues. The climate is fine, it's me or my yard that does them in.
Sea holly - never grown it, but I saw a beautiful planting by a restaurant on Fathers Day. Steel blue, spectacular, next to yellow dwarf sunflowers - and I forget what all else.
Rosemary - beautiful small blue flowers in spring. There's a groundcover too - lithodora - looks a bit like rosemary, but not related, I don't think.
Blue oat grass - maybe that's what dmd has too? Nice silvery blue, doesn't spread, but can be divided and sometimes self-seeds.
I have some kind of bluish sedum that crawls along the ground - very tough - gets a chrome yellow flower that I don't like, but is easily pulled off.
Sorry for hogging the blog - I keep thinking of more blue flowers/plants. As you can tell, I like blue!
Yes blue oat grass is what I have, very good mostly, just planted this year as is the whole garden. The stokes Aster I planted is a blue/lavender, in the garden world would probably be considered a blue as I find they take liberties with the colour, if it is close to blue it counts.
CP love the blue flower pictures.
I shall try to post pictures of my gardens and future garden, suggestions PLEASE!!
I refined the native plant list somewhat for Yoki, I had selected quite a few for her in blues and yellows and whites and pinks for colour but neglected to set up the list. This list is only native plants from a great organization that does many good things including "greening" school yards etc. There are details given for each plant if you click on the plant, pictures are not always included though.
Hope the link works
http://www.evergreen.ca/nativeplants/search/search-results.php?mode=page&page=1