Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: New meaning to Winter Blues with Pantone’s 2020 color of the year… Blue!
With the announcement of Classic Blue, the 2020 Pantone Color of the Year, I thought I’d share some hardy blue perennials for our cool climate! Amsonia ‘Storm Cloud’ is a low-maintenance shrub-like delight that grows to about 36 inches tall and about 40 inches wide.
The stems poke out of the soil almost black!
The leaves are a sort of olive green while the periwinkle flowers sit atop making it look like a cloud of blue. Plant in sun to part sun for full effect. It blooms from late Spring to early Summer.
There’s a native Baptisia hybrid that’s just decadent! Also called False Indigo, Decadence ‘Blueberry Sundae’ looks as tasty as it sounds!
This compact plant has blue-green foliage with indigo blue spires of flowers showing off from late spring to early summer! However, the plant is beautiful in the garden all season.
‘Blueberry Sundae’ grows to 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide. It will tolerate poor soil but does appreciate full sunshine. This is a long-lived perennial that prefers not to be moved. It produces lovely seed pods in the Fall.
From early summer to late summer, I will suggest a newer cultivar of Speedwell, Magic Show ‘Wizard of Ahhhhs’….
This is the description provided by Proven Winners, Thick spikes of violet blue flowers are borne prolifically atop the low, wide clump of dark green foliage.
Plant this fella in the front of your garden or use in a container for a filler (then save it and plant in the garden come Fall). The Wizard of Ahhhs’ grows to just 16 inches tall with a width of about 22 inches. This Speedwell grows best in average to moist, enriched, well-drained soil and full sun. Shear it back after flowering.
And finally…
There’s a new bush-style clematis that was introduced last year! ‘Stand by Me’ is a non-vining herbaceous Clematis that dies back to the ground at the end of the growing season. It has a profusion of Blue bell-shaped flowers. The plant does best with support from staking, cages or neighboring plants.
