Forget-me-not.


usually to just over eight inches. Give it morning sun and afternoon shade. It will self-sow even in Alaska.


Hyacinth and Virginia bluebells Hyacinth ‘Blue Tango’ is true sky blue


and so is Mertensia virginica, a native North American perennial, with clus- ter of nodding, bell-shaped flowers. A woodland plant, it is also called Virgin- ia cowslip or Virginia bluebells and is generally 12 to 24 Inches tall, blooming in springtime and into early summer.


Forget-me-not More intensely hued, and brilliantly


blued is forget-me-not, Myosotis, from the borage family. There are both peren- nial and annual varieties, but the annu- als are such successful self-sowers that they are often mistaken for perennials. Some people think of this tiny blue flower as a weed, but I love to have its blue carpet fill my garden in springtime. Later it dies back and the dead foliage can be removed, but be sure to shake the seeds heads over the soil to guaran- tee a return of the blue carpet next year. Forget-me-not


is a many storied


flower associated with the memory of the poor and of war dead. It was the flower of remembrance in Newfound- land until the poppy was adopted, but there are still Newfoundlanders who wear


the forget-me-not is to remember


their lost soldiers. Myosotis sylvaticus, the woodland forget-me-not,


the most common


in gardens. Cynoglossum amabile, the Chinese forget-me-not


is not a true


forget-me-not, but it is just as blue. Browallia


An annual that blooms blue-ly all


summer long, is the blue of the lovely little Browallia speciosa, a shy little plant, with the five-petalled flowers, that grows to eight inches in the shade in my garden, but reaches over a foot in others. The blue is blue enough to call one vari- ety ‘Bluebells”, but they also come in violet and white. The blue browallia is the prettiest to my mind.


www.localgardener.net


Fabulous blue dephinium.


Delphiniuma and monkshood Blue in the sunlight is often elusive,


but it exists if you know where to look. Lovely blue delphiniums grow in the sun, although they are happy in part shade. The originals, Delphinium elatum, were so blue that the dye from their blos- soms, mixed with alum, was once used as ink. Larkspur is the common name for delphinium, but Larkspur consolida, the closely related genus, is an annual with an open spike, where the flowers are threaded onto the main stem in a much looser way than are delphinium. Some varieties are intensely blue. All parts of the delphinium plant


contain an alkaloid, delphinine, similar to that contained in Aconitum (monks- hood). This means that delphiniums are very poisonous, causing vomiting, and even death when eaten in larger amounts. Speaking of that, what could be bluer


than Aconitum napellus? The beautiful but deadly monkshood or wolfbane is a violent midnight blue, reflecting


WINTER 2013 17 The more loosely blossomed larkspur.


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