Singin’ the blues
Finding spring flowers that evoke many a gardener’s favorite color — true blue — within the practical and hardy category of natives may seem at first a difficult endeavor, but in truth there are numerous choices that bring a bit of the clear blue sky into your spring garden.
Cool hues
Baby blue eyes: March is the time for native annuals such as the aptly named baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii). This low-growing or spilling sunlover offers up a seemingly endless parade of robin’s egg blue 1-inch flowers that are popular with bees. Once you’ve gazed upon these “baby blues,” it’s hard to forget them.
Phacelia: Want a richer, deeper blue? Two Phacelia species offer inky blue flowers that are real eye-catchers. P. campanularia, known as desert bluebells, is a wonderful choice for cascading over a low wall or for tumbling out of a large container. Besides the striking flowers, the scalloped leaves have a dark blush that makes them especially attractive. Try pairing this plant with two yellow spring natives — meadow foam (Limnanthes douglasii) or tidy tips (Layia platyglossa). For something taller and fuller, there’s the multi-branching 3-foot-tall Phacelia viscida. Liking a bit of relief from midday heat, it produces loads of 1-inch gentian-blue flowers that feature an intricately patterned center nectary. This phacelia likes rich soil for the best results.
Salvias: There are many blue salvias but few that are native. S. munzii ‘Dark Blue’ is an excellent, medium-sized salvia, reaching 4 to 6 feet. This variety has darker flowers than the straight species, giving us blue lovers a good fix. Drought tolerant and evergreen when it gets a bit of regular water, it’s an excellent choice as a landscape shrub. And for those gardeners for whom only the truest blue will do, there’s Linum lewisii, known simply as blue flax. This linum is native to grasslands and open woodlands, and with its delicate stems it fits right in. One-inch flowers perch atop 30-inch stems and sway gently in the breeze. This flax is a sun lover, and although it’s a shortlived perennial, it might reseed under friendly conditions.
Wild lilac: If blue-flowering perennials are on your wish list, consider adding one of the many Ceanothus species. I like C. ‘Joyce Coulter’ as it offers some of the bluest flowers in the genus. It gets to 2 feet tall but is much wider (6 to 8 feet). In spring it’s smothered in lightly fragrant lavender-blue flowers. As with other species, it’s drought tolerant, adapts to sun or light shade and is a magnet for bees and butterflies. For something of a more modest size, there’s the native Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Blue Springs.’ This foot-plus tall and wide evergreen perennial features inch-long tubular flowers, with pink tubes and flared, true blue petals. Ideal for a mixed sun and shade location and drought tolerant once established, this guy is an overachiever in the blooming department. A favorite of our local hummingbirds, it will bloom from late spring through early fall.
Blue bulbs: Finally, for those curious if there is a blue-flowering native bulb, the answer is yes. Brodiaea laxa ‘Queen Fabiola’ issues bluish-purple flowers in late spring; as it colonizes easily over time, one is treated to quite a show. Blue thimble flower: Sometimes foliage is almost as much a feature as the flowers. That may be true for Gilia capitata, known commonly as blue thimble flower. This 15inch-tall spring annual produces a thicket of fernlike foliage, from which eventually protrude stems topped by 2-inch, lavender-blue round flower heads. The heads are a collection of tiny florets, each with its own stamen and nectar. And yes, it’s a bee magnet and a plant that often self-seeds. Pair it with any number of pink or salmon flowering native clarkias in a sunny bed or pot.