Blue flowering plants showing off in gardens

As forget-me-nots fade, my love for blue if fulfilled through other plants. And I am not talking about near-blue, almost-blue or soft violet. True blue is waving from several corners of the yard through several species of amsonia, which are seriously soft blue. Long stems are easily identified because they are full and frilly and offer beauty all through the growing season. Nigella or love-in-a-mist has begun its show of blue round forms against soft foliage.

Brunnera has faded where it put on a show above its strong foliage. There were a few blue Siberian irises — some so intense that they moved toward violet. Aha, and one lonely delphinium is ready to extend its blue quietly between junipers and a purple smoke bush where the deer have not found it. They gnawed through an earlier bunch. Oh, and there are two perennial bachelor buttons, also referred to as mountain bluets.

Blue salvia plants surround one of the bird baths in full sunshine; they will bloom later. Not far from that blue plant are healthy-looking eryngium plants, which have healthy basal foliage but no stems, that are pushing up yet. In the raised bed frames, oodles of baby anchusas will later fill their spots with true blue. The echinops or globe thistle is coming along well and will bring on spheres of blue by July.

Later a Stoke's aster, another healthy perennial, will bring blue textural round flowers. The deer really liked the blue flax plant started from seed. It struggled earlier and then died.

There is now a very special, shockingly blue penstemon blooming its head off near the flagpole. Happily this "Electric Blue" version is not reaching the height of its family members that are currently blooming in tall spikes. Vivid blue tiny trumpet-like flowers line the stem and glow in the sun. It is carefree and drought-resistant. Butterflies come and I am watching for hummingbirds, a true pollinator. I just learned that songbirds will come feasting on its seeds in fall and even winter.

The color blue is difficult for a plant to produce since there is no single pigment that can accomplish this. However, the molecular level brings metal ions into play and other molecules jump in to achieve "blueness." There is more but this will help you understand a little why true blue flowers are scarce and special.

There is a pot of agapanthus, a blue bulb, that needs my attention. The bulbs need to be separated. They are pushing against each other, crowding. I doubt there will be any appreciable show of flowers unless this is managed.

Long live blue.

Mary Lee Minor is a member of the Earth, Wind and Flowers Garden Club, an accredited master gardener, a flower show judge for the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs and a former sixth grade teacher.