Gardening: Celebrating beautiful blue blooms  

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Gardeners love blue blooms. Blue is viewed as peaceful and relaxing. It represents the sky, water, and even the far horizon. It is not a coincidence that the blue flower was a core symbol for the Romanticism movement of the 1800s where it stood, and still does, for desire, love, the sacred longing and aspiration for the infinite, the unattainable, and perhaps the unknowing. Blue is the soul of the poet in all of us. 

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In nature, fewer than 10 per cent of all flowers are blue and the colour is even less represented in the animal world. So, it makes sense that it is the colour of desire and longing. We always want that which is the most unattainable! 

Blue as a colour or pigment doesn’t exist in nature. What we see as blue is a combination of other pigments and minerals along with reflected light. Anthocyanins, the red pigments, are the most common pigments for blue mixed in varying concentrations which also explains why many flowers called blue appear to us as lavender, light purple or even blue-red. The physics of light plays a part as the colours we see are the ones that are not absorbed by an object. Plant leaves are shades of green for the most part because they absorb every other colour but green.

 This begs the question, why any blue flowers at all? To be different, even unique, of course! In the competition for pollinators, plants can be quite willing to sacrifice a bit of energy to become a niche bloom for that special pollinator. It’s probably why we, the gardeners, prize our blue flowers so. We want to have colour in our gardens that is just a little different or even dramatically different!  

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So, what are the beautiful blue summer blooms we can grow and enjoy in Calgary? 

The parade of perennial flowers includes delphinium with their darker bees. Check out Blue Butterfly or Blue Mirror. Gentians, of course, are much sought after; the poet William Cullen Bryant wrote that they were “colored with the heaven’s own blue.” I love them so much I have upwards of five different species in my garden, where they bloom from mid-summer through fall. Consider the vine Blue Bird clematis or the groundcover periwinkle that has given its name to a specific shade of blue. Morning glories are an old-fashioned but stunning climber, and who can resist the cultivar Heavenly Blue? 

Then there are Alberta wildflowers, blue flax, mountain larkspur, and blue-eyed grass to gladden the eyes on a walk in our foothills, along with sky-blue chicory wherever it crops up. 

Back in our gardens come campanulas; perennial salvia, with all the named cultivars to choose from; plus a favourite of mine – Fama scabiosa Deep Blue) with its airy pincushion flowers, along with Heaven’s Scent Jacob’s ladder.

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Perhaps you’d like to chance your luck with the Himalayan blue poppy – it requires moist, humus-rich, acidic soil, so it’s something to celebrate if you are successful at raising this mountainous beauty. 

Don’t forget the annual flowers either, with the different blue hues of lobelia or delicate love-in-a-mist with Miss Jekyll Indigo, a stunning deep blue. Petunias also come in mauve-blue, as do pansies. The herb borage, or starflower to give its other common name, is an edible flower and a bee magnet. The cornflower blue of bachelor button has always been a staple of our gardens but be careful as once it is in your garden it will continue to pop up because of its freely self-sowing habit. Other members of the Centaurea family are on Alberta’s Invasive Species List. 

Late summer brings the glorious aromas of lavender flowers, catmint and Russian sage, plus steel-blue sea holl and spiky globe thistle to round out the season and bring the pageant to a close. 

 But there are many other lovely blue flowers that I haven’t even mentioned. For a blue-flower enthusiast, it is always a delight to discover another one to add to the garden. Just don’t look for a blue rose, chrysanthemum, or daisy. Should they be at your local florist or in the cut-flower section of the grocery store, their blue is sure to be a result of dye! 

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