Vibrant Blue Blooms Ideal for Garden Cultivation
In the world of horticulture, blue-themed gardens are a delight for the senses, offering a serene and cool ambiance that captivates the imagination. To create a stunning blue-themed garden, it's essential to consider complementary colours that will enhance the cool serenity of blue flowers. Here's a guide to some effective colour combinations and flowering species that will help you achieve a beautiful and harmonious blue-themed garden.
Yellow flowers, such as Coreopsis, provide a warm, bright contrast to blue, adding vibrancy and drawing the eye. Yellow-coreopsis pairs well with blue blossoms to add balance in sunny garden beds. White flowers, like Frost aster and Shasta daisies, offer a crisp, clean contrast that enhances the serenity and coolness of blue flowers. White can brighten shady garden spots and give a fresh, airy feel, especially when paired with blue blooms like bluebells.
Pink or soft lavender flowers, such as Joe-Pye weed, Monarda, Peonies, Astrantia, and Delphinium, add romantic softness and blend harmoniously with blue flowers, creating a gentle, whimsical garden palette that works beautifully in rustic or cottage-style gardens. Silver or gray foliage, like Dusty miller and ferns, complements blue flowers by reinforcing the cool color scheme and adding texture and subtle shimmer to shady garden areas, enhancing the glow of blue blossoms. Green foliage accents add natural contrast and help unify the palette, especially with combinations like dusty blue, white, and green for a classic garden look.
When it comes to specific flowering species, there are numerous options to choose from. Salvia Bullulata 'Pale Form', a pale-blue almost turquoise form of a rare and variable species from Peru, offers a long flowering period in summer to autumn. Echium vulgare, a strikingly beautiful biennial with bristly, spotted leaves and stems, and bright-blue flower spikes from June to August, is drought resistant and a magnet for bees.
Hardy geraniums have some varieties that are clearly blue, such as Geranium 'Orion', with luminous lavender-blue flowers that cover the plant in June and then again in August. It is a large hardy geranium that looks good in the middle of a border and can be used as a ground cover plant. Veronicastrum offers a long season of interest and is useful to pollinating insects, growing up to 1-1.8m with flower spikes that give a vertical accent to a border. It tolerates most soils if they are not too dry, and a wide range of pH.
Camassia is a hardy, versatile perennial that can be planted in mixed and herbaceous borders, as well as in containers. It produces blue flowers and most flower from April through to June. The Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis) is a gorgeous shade of sky blue and can be tricky to grow, preferring a cool climate and part shade. 'Lingholm' is a longer-lived perennial than other cultivars and grows well from seed.
Hepaticum is a charming, ever so slightly recalcitrant flower that grows best in open, fertile, moist soil under trees and shrubs. It has diverse flowers and intriguingly patterned leaves. Cerinthe produces bell-shaped, purple flowers hooded by deep blue-green glaucous leaves and produces a sweet, honey-flavored nectar irresistible to bees. It blooms from spring to autumn and makes an excellent cut flower.
Symphyotrichum 'Little Carlow' is a superb hybrid with heart-shaped lower foliage and relatively large 25mm daisies that are an intense lavender-blue with yellow centres, held in generous sprays from late September. It will tolerate light shade and grows up to 1.2m. Agapanthus come in a range of blues, from icy blue to deep indigo, and are versatile perennials for gardens of all sizes and situations. They flower in summer.
Corydalis is a delicate, elegant plant that flowers from spring through to summer. There are blue, white, and pink cultivars available. Most corydalis you buy in garden centres are herbaceous perennial woodland plants, so they will like shade over summer. Amsonia has erect, leafy stems with willow-like foliage supporting abundant clusters of star-shaped, sky-blue flowers with white throats. It flowers for five to six weeks and has good winter structure.
Bluebells are native perennial wildflowers with arching stems, lined with nodding bell-shaped blooms. They like moist soil and thrive under deciduous trees and shrubs. Forget-me-nots are robust and easy to care for, making good ground cover in a spring border. They are self-seeding and pollinators love them. Borage is an annual plant found in many parts of Europe, often growing along grass verges and below bushes, with leaves and stems that are covered with a woolly layer. It self-sows easily and is beloved by bees.
To extend blue-themed interest through seasons, consider succession planting. Start with spring ephemerals like Virginia bluebells and Jacob’s ladder, move into summer with wild indigo and spiderwort, and finish with tall late summer bloomers like great blue lobelia and blue sage. Additionally, consider adding complementary perennials like Salvia, Catmint (Nepeta), Coneflowers, and Coreopsis, which pair well with blue flowers both aesthetically and functionally, attracting pollinators and adding textural variety.
In conclusion, effective colour combinations for blue-flowered gardens often include warm yellows, crisp whites, soft pinks or lavenders, silver-gray foliage, and natural greens to create depth, contrast, and seasonal interest. These combinations enhance the cool serenity of blue flowers like forget-me-nots and bluebells throughout the garden year.
- Yellow flowers, such as Coreopsis, in combination with blue flowers create a vibrant contrast and balance in sunny garden beds.
- White flowers, like Frost aster and Shasta daisies, offer a crisp, clean contrast that emphasizes the serenity and coolness of blue flowers, especially in shady garden spots.
- Pink or soft lavender flowers, such as Joe-Pye weed, Monarda, Peonies, Astrantia, and Delphinium, blend harmoniously with blue flowers, providing a romantic, whimsical garden palette.
- Silver or gray foliage, like Dusty miller and ferns, complements blue flowers by reinforcing the cool color scheme and adding texture and subtle shimmer to shady garden areas, enhancing the glow of blue blooms.
