Blue poppies
Regular readers will know of my fascination with blue poppies (meconopsis). My timing has been out and I’ve only seen the odd one or two this year so here’s a picture from Harlow Carr last year.
Blue delphiniums
Sightings of delphiniums are always very welcome too, be they stocky little spires or towering ones. The lovely folk word ‘bee’ describes the petals at centre of each floret. The stocky delphiniums above have white bees and the ones below, lavender-blue ones.
Tall blue delphiniums at RHS Garden Rosemoor
This year hasn’t been a flower dearth – far from it. Rosemoor provided me with as many flowers as I could hope for, even setting aside the roses I shared a fortnight ago. and even though my capacity to hope for flowers is huge.
Borage with water drops
This nodding, rain splashed borage was growing in Chatsworth’s large, terraced kitchen garden. Borage’s hairy buds and stems are always interesting, but I particularly liked the band of pink and blue on the flower petals the foreground. (While I was writing that sentence, WordPress helpfully corrected ‘hairy buds’ to ‘hairy bods’ – what was it thinking?)
Scilla ‘Spring Beauty’
I have tried to include a plant for every season. There are lots of good choices for an English spring – bluebells, of course, muscari and ipheon – but I’ve chosen this early version of scilla for its unusually vibrant colour. It seems funny how the green seed pods are swollen while the petals still look so fresh.
Gentiana angustifolia
Continuing the theme of if I’m gonna be blue, I’m gonna be real blue (surely a song begging to be written?) is this gentian, using peppermint green to lure in pollinators. It’s nice to be different.
Blue iris reticulata
Iris reticulata is a staple of UK winter gardens. Although the rich blue colour is striking, what appealed to me most was the transformational quality of the light falling on the paler standards. (The botanical descriptor doesn’t mean the standard type of standard, but the way the petals are held aloft – like a military flag.)
As an aside, I often wonder how botanical nomenclature comes over to people who didn’t learn Latin. I enjoy the way Latin words spill over into English, but I caught myself the other day while reviewing pictures after a long day at a flower show wondering “Who on earth thought it was a good idea to name this succulent ‘superbum’?” It took me a moment to remember that ‘superbum’ was Latin, not English; one word, not two; with the emphasis on the ‘per’, not the ‘su’. A pity in a way, now I’ve got used to the idea. Some of those lithops succulents…
Dandelion Sculptures at the Fairchild Botanical Garden
After that, I’ll hastily wrap things up. My final offering is as elegant and lofty as you could wish: metal dandelions with blue hesper palms photobombing the shot. The palms look greenish viewed against the sky, but it wasn’t me who named them.
As many of you will have realised, I’m sharing these flowers as part of Becky’s Blue Squares – after today, we’ve just one bonus day left!
Wonderful Susan!
I’m glad you liked them.
Lovely pictures Susan. I’m partial to blue agapanthus.
I didn’t highlight those as they were a bit blurry – well spotted!
Those dandelion sculptures are fabulous, but oh the gentian!
The gentian has character, that’s for sure!
Lovely, for some reason I really struggle with delphinium in my garden.
I rarely see a lot of them together, other than that at a flower show.
They’re all so pretty.
Thanks, Correne.
Oh I so adore your blue flowers. 😀
True blue flowers often give me a double take – for some reason, their colour seems unexpected.
what a glorious post, I have so enjoyed this. So many stunning flowers, and love the art work at the end. Thank you so much 🙂
My pleasure, Becky.
Gorgeous all – I’m partial to Gentians and Delphiniums with the violet tinge.
I’d love to see gentians growing in the wild.
There used to be a patch of gentian near our town swimming hole before they made ‘improvements’ and bulldozed the lot into oblivion. Sadly, an all-too-common human error.
Lots of pretty blue flowers! For some reason I don’t see many blue ones around here, even in the store’s floral department. That dandelion sculpture is really neat! 🙂
It would be interesting to know what the most commonly grown colour of flower is.
🙂 🙂
Oh, what a wonderful collection of my favorite blues! Thank you for posting these delightful flowers!
I’m glad you like them, Leya.
I’m very partial to blue flowers, but I don’t think I’ve seen any at all in the residential gardens on this western side of the city.
Nothing beats Borage for its hairy stems and beautiful dainty blooms. I didn’t know blue poppies even existed, so thanks for sharing that shot, Susan.
Blue poppies will always be a curiosity, no matter how often you see them – at least, if I’m anything to go by!
I do love the blues. And those lithops! I used to have some that had amazing metallic blooms. Yes, autocorrect can be so inappropriate! and I love the fact someone else is misreading things. I’m sure those plants were utterly superb!
Whoever named them certainly wanted us to think so!
Beautiful blues – one of my favourite flower colours. I love those dandelion sculptures too!
Mine too.
“Bees”?? The folk names are so much fun — and ever so much easier to remember! I do agree about how fascinating the Latin is, but it escapes memory too easily. “Bee” I can remember. These blues are pure drama, and absolutely gorgeous. I enjoyed both blues and laughs, though one wouldn’t think they’d go together.
I don’t know – there must be some reason for the saying ‘someone always leaves a banana skin on the scene of a tragedy.’
I tried to respond last night, but it didn’t work. Maybe now. I wanted to tell you that of all the sayings I’ve never heard this one ranks at the top! The image of Lady MacBeth slipping on a banana skin right after “all the perfumes in Arabia” is mind-bending. But I fear I’d be among those in the pit laughing.
“… whoops!” Our drama teacher taught us that one.
I love blue flowers but the only one of these that we grow are Scilla and Borage. Would love to grow Meconopsis, but we have the wrong sort of climate. On the other hand, we have Virginia Bluebells and Wild Blue Indigo and they have wonderful blue flowers in May and June
I always like to see Virginia bluebells.