{"id":1415,"date":"2018-07-16T08:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T08:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/?p=1415"},"modified":"2021-05-13T15:54:36","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T19:54:36","slug":"so-you-want-blue-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/so-you-want-blue-in-the-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"So you want blue in the garden!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Horticulturally speaking, the color blue is rare. So rare, that many of the flowers we call &#8220;blue&#8221; are in fact&#8230; purple. Blue iris? Purple. Blue roses? HA! Purple &#8211; and weak at that. Syringa, Campanula, Lobelia, Hyacinth, Baptisia&#8230; all have varieties CALLED blue, but they are&#8230; purple. I found this quite confusing when I started in the nursery business. Apparently we gardeners are DESPERATE for blue in the garden and we will call anything close &#8220;blue&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/727_5817_683.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Picea pungens 'Glauca Globosa'\" width=\"683\" height=\"455\" title=\"727_5817_683\" data-id=\"1439\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/727_5817_683.jpg\" style=\"\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Picea pungens &#8216;Glauca Globosa&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>This tendency extends to foliage as well &#8211; blue spruce, blue juniper, and blue hosta, are all rather more silvery than blue, with the added insult of the color wearing off with weather and time! I still chuckle about the customer I had on the retail lot one day, who accused us of spray-painting the &#8216;Moerheim&#8217; spruce because, &#8220;Look! It rubs off!&#8221; There wasn&#8217;t much I could say because he was right, it did.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/scilla_chionodoxa_2_683.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Scilla and Chionodoxa\" width=\"683\" height=\"455\" title=\"scilla_chionodoxa_2_683\" data-id=\"1432\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/scilla_chionodoxa_2_683.jpg\" style=\"\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>L: Scilla siberica &#8211; R: Chionodoxa luciliae<\/p>\n<p>There ARE a few truly blue flowers we can grow in Michigan. Amsonia, Delphinium, Virginia Bluebells, the annual &#8216;Black and Blue&#8217; Salvia, Forget-me-nots, Sisyrinchium, and Ceratostigma all have excellent blue flowers. Scilla siberica is a minor bulb that naturalizes and can give you an ocean of blue flowers every spring. Chionodoxa&#8217;s pretty good, too.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_8385_683.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Caryopteris\" width=\"683\" height=\"455\" title=\"731_8385_683\" data-id=\"1429\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_8385_683.jpg\" style=\"\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Caryopteris x clandonensis<\/p>\n<p>In shrubs you can try Caryopteris &#8211; wait, that one&#8217;s a bit on the purple side &#8211; heck, it&#8217;s barely a shrub, more like a woody perennial. Hmmmm. Hibiscus &#8216;Blue Chiffon&#8217; is pretty blue. Almost. OKAY, OKAY, FINE. You want blue? You&#8217;d best be planting Hydrangea. The old favorite, &#8216;Nikko Blue&#8217; has been surpassed by newer cultivars like Nantucket Blue\u2122 and The Endless Summer\u00ae line, with the original Endless Summer\u00ae, Twist-n-Shout\u00ae, and BloomStruck\u00ae &nbsp;all of which bloom on both old and new wood. These plants can be coaxed into producing nice blue blooms with the proper soil pH.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_8341_683.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Hydrangea\" width=\"683\" height=\"455\" title=\"731_8341_683\" data-id=\"1430\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_8341_683.jpg\" style=\"\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hydrangea Endless Summer\u00ae<\/p>\n<p>So you do have some options. And take those photos of bright blue-flowering plants on Pinterest with a grain of salt. Most of them are Photoshop. Or perhaps dyed like those poor Phalenopsis orchids at the grocery store.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_4886_683.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Myosotis\" width=\"683\" height=\"428\" title=\"731_4886_683\" data-id=\"1431\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/731_4886_683.jpg\" style=\"\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Myosotis palustris<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"width: 100%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/christensen.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Holly Christensen\" width=\"600\" height=\"175\" title=\"christensen\" data-id=\"4047\" src=\"\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/christensen.png\" style=\"\" data-width=\"600\" data-height=\"175\" data-init-width=\"600\" data-init-height=\"175\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Horticulturally speaking, the color blue is rare. So rare, that many of the flowers we call &#8220;blue&#8221; are in fact&#8230; purple. Blue iris? Purple. Blue roses? HA! Purple &#8211; and weak at that. Syringa, Campanula, Lobelia, Hyacinth, Baptisia&#8230; all have varieties CALLED blue, but they are&#8230; purple. I found this quite confusing when I started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,22,8,6],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-87","category-landscaping","category-perennials","category-plants","tag-holly-christensen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4121,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions\/4121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christensensplantcenter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}