This week: Feeling Blue (Flowers)
Hello,
By February, winter feels impossibly long, and it’s easy to get the blues. Instead, let’s celebrate the color by welcoming a few “blue” native perennials into the garden. While some of the flowers look purple to me, we’ll place our trust in their common names for this newsletter.
Virginia Bluebells
Charming Virginia Bluebells are a classic spring ephemeral whose foliage dies back by the summer. As such, plant them alongside other shade plants like Heuchera and ferns, whose leaves don’t mature until later in the spring. They are best planted as bare roots. Clump bunches together to encourage a colony.
Eastern Bluestar
Eastern Bluestar, a northeastern native, sends its asparagus-like stalks up from the ground in the spring and blooms through the early summer on reddish-colored stems. Its foliage turns golden yellow for an additional season of interest in the fall. I like its 3-foot by 3-foot rounded shape—it’s a great substitute for a small shrub in tight spaces.
Blue Flag Iris
Native Blue Flag Iris flowers are smaller and more delicate than the classic non-native Bearded Iris flower—its reedy foliage is only about 2 feet fall. In nature, Blue Flag Iris grows along sunny shorelines, and in home gardens, it’s a gorgeous addition to rain gardens and aquatic gardens. Fun fact: the Ojibwe carried a piece of the plant as a charm to protect them from snakes when going berry-picking.
Blue False Indigo
Blue False Indigo begins to bloom in the late spring. Once the blooms fade, attractive plump seedheads take their place and gradually turn into gothically dark seedheads. Its foliage deepens to a silvery blue by midsummer and is a fabulous filler for summer flower arrangements. This plant requires patience: it is slow to establish and can take up to three seasons to bloom when started from seed.
Blue Mistflower
Blue Mistflower’s small, vibrant-colored flowers bloom in August and keep showing off into October. Mistflower is well-visited by pollinators and birds, as it provides late summer and fall nutrition while the flowering season is winding down. It’s also fairly low-growing for a native—in my garden, it only reaches about two feet tall. Perfect for a border or ground cover!
Elsewhere:
Tree nuts can register for this free Penn State Extension webinar, where you’ll learn about Pennsylvania’s chestnuts, hickories, and hazelnuts, from their history to their current-day uses as a crop.
Have a good week,
Julie