An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, of all places, touched on the topic of color in the garden. Interestingly enough, it was built around the premise that:

Blue is the most elusive, most coveted color in gardening, where some of the most skilled practitioners take pleasure in attempting to grow the near-impossible. Much of what passes for blue in the plant world—lavender, lilac, larkspur—is actually a shade of purple.

The author, Anne Marie Chaker, covered quite a bit of ground in her well researched story, even touching on the science and genetics of blue pigments in plants (though she rather lightly skipped past most of the fascinating folklore surrounding the rare Himalayan blue poppy, Meconopsis grandis).

Here in Atlanta, where I live, there seems to be an abundance of blue right now — everywhere you look, yards are filled with blue mophead hydrangeas. Our acidic clay soil keeps the flowers a really true shade of blue — quite pretty, for the most part. When I lived in the Midwest, where the soil was more neutral, hydrangeas were always unappealing, muddy shades of mauve and lavender. (For an explanation of how soil pH affects hydrangea flower color, click here.)

My final thought: I was surprised to see no mention of the Heavenly Blue morning glory in an article about blue flowers. This is an annual that’s easily grown from seed, and is one of the truest shades of blue around, with hardly a hint of lavender. (Like all morning glories, the flowers of Heavenly Blue open just after dawn and close by early afternoon — one more example of how elusive the color blue can be in the garden!