{"id":3544,"date":"2018-08-10T15:44:38","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T23:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/?p=3544"},"modified":"2018-08-10T15:44:38","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T23:44:38","slug":"all-things-blue-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/2018\/08\/10\/all-things-blue-in-the-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"All Things Blue in the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

While harvesting blueberries at a friends? garden<\/strong> I started thinking of the color blue and why it appeals to all of us gardeners. I was taking care of this fabulous garden while the owners were out of town so I had a lot of time to enjoy all of the plants including the blue flowering ones.<\/p>\n

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Blueberries-fresh off the bush- delicious<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The color blue, especially in the summer, soothes our senses.<\/strong> Soft blues will calm the mind and aid concentration. Strong blues can stimulate clear thoughts. I?m not sure if the different blueberries fall into this category but I sure enjoyed tasting each of them.<\/p>\n

Of the 4 different types of blueberries<\/strong> I harvested I think I liked O?Neal, a variety of Southern high bush, the best.
\nThe large light blue early South Moon were also delicious as were the Blueray and Bluecrop. Although many blueberry species are considered self-fertile, all blueberry bushes benefit from cross-pollination and produce larger and more full flavored crops with another bush nearby. To ensure bees carry pollen from one bush to another, space them within 6 feet of each other.<\/p>\n

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The author’s hydrangea garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the weather gets hot I head to the part of my garden where the blue hydrangeas<\/strong> are blooming. I have several mophead types that vary in color from sky blue to deep blue. One is almost blue-violet this year although I didn?t add anything to the soil this winter to make it more acidic. I don?t have any lacecap varieties so I took a cutting of a spectacular Mariesii variegated one at the garden I was tending. It?s the white in both the foliage and the flower that makes the rest of the blue blossoms really standout.<\/p>\n

\"\"True blue flowers are rare.<\/strong> We use words like cerulean, azure, cobalt, sapphire, turquoise, electric blue or steel blue when describing blue flowers. Hybridizers have tried for years to produce a true blue rose or blue daylily. Blue plant pigment is hard to manipulate. It occurs in the daylily as a sap-soluble pigment and is difficult to segregate. Lilacs, purples, orchids and mauves we have and working with them hybridizers may eventually get near blue, but pure blue probably never.<\/p>\n

Rose hybridizers<\/strong> striving for true blue have come close by crossbreeding lavender hybrid teas in order to produce offspring having optimum amount of cyanidin, The results have been more of a silvery lilac or mauve. A blue rose is still in the future although labs in Australia and Japan are genetically modifying the pigments from petunias to produce a blue rose. Their results are not yet perfected and these roses are more of a lilac in color and can not survive conditions outside the lab. It is apparently very difficult to isolate the pigment cyanadin. Delphiniums have a monopoly on it.<\/p>\n

There are many blue perennials<\/strong> as handsome as they are durable that we can enjoy in our gardens today.
\nBesides the old fashioned hydrangea, there are violas and campanulas. I?m also growing a blue impatien called ?Blue Diamond? that attracts the hummingbirds. All are valuable in the shade garden along with omphaloides and brunnera. The blue spikes of a long blooming peach-leaf campanula just go together with the white and green variegated foliage of Jack Frost Siberian bugloss.<\/p>\n

In early spring we are dazzled by our native ceanothus<\/strong> which bloom with deep blue, sky blue or electric blue flowers. Emerald Blue phlox subulata<\/strong> carpets the ground in spring with clear blue flowers. Penstemon heterophyllus<\/strong>, a California native hybrid, carries dense spikes of bright blue, bell-shaped blossoms.<\/p>\n

Make sure your garden has a blue section to cool you on a hot day.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While harvesting blueberries at a friends? garden I started thinking of the color blue and why it appeals to all of us gardeners. I was taking care of this fabulous garden while the owners were out of town so I had a lot of time to enjoy all of the plants including the blue flowering … Continue reading All Things Blue in the Garden<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,971,973,972],"tags":[870,237,974],"class_list":["post-3544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berries","category-blue","category-blueberries","category-hydrangeas","tag-blue-flowers","tag-blueberries","tag-hydrangeas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}