Blue is a precious color in the garden. This color has the same virtues as white. Blue is both capable of waking up a dull scene, or calming down an ensemble that is a little too lively. It is also very useful for creating attractive links between plants.
Plants with blue flowers or bluish foliage are innumerable. You are probably familiar with agapanthus, hydrangeas, lupins, hyacinth, irises, forget-me-nots, borage, periwinkles. I invite you to discover others that hold up to both high heat and severe cold with Didier Thillaye du Boullay from the Lac des Sapins nursery in the Monts du Beaujolais.
This perennial (veronica umbrosa ‘Georgia Blue’) makes it possible to compose all-blue carpets: “It flowers from the month of February, even with us who grow and live at an altitude of 700 m. The flowers follow one another from February to April. Then in summer, its foliage reddens before returning to green. And we have a new flowering in September-October.”
“It’s a plant to put in everyone’s hands, even those of the most clueless gardeners!”
Didier Thillaye du Boullayat franceinfo
Second plant to adopt: Caucasian forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla). I love this plant, especially the ‘Jack Frost’ variety, which grows in partial shade. Its leaves form perfect, silver-grey hearts, and it is easy to grow in a container.
‘It is beautiful in bloom in the spring, and beautiful without flowers the rest of the year! Its silver foliage is very decorative and the flowering very vaporous.”
And if you are looking for a plant that will bloom blue very, very late in the season, there is the Lobelia siphilitica. This never sick plant is, moreover, not very demanding in watering.
“It’s an extraordinary blue plant, a gentian blue! A completely crazy flowering from September until November. Moreover, it is a plant that resists perfectly down to -15°C. You can install it wherever you want in the garden, in the sun or in partial shade. All you need to do is give it a little love, and the job is done!”
Finally, treat yourself because there are as many shades of blue as pink or red. Do a search on the Internet by simply typing “blue flowers”, and you will be spoiled for choice for your garden or your balcony.