POSTED BY KIM — I can find something to appreciate about most flowers. Maybe it blooms an especially long time, is really fragrant, or can withstand tough growing conditions. But when it comes to flower color, I think the Virginia bluebell Mertensia virginica is in a class by itself.
Bonus: It’s native! I always think of native flowers as being less showy than their cultivated and hybridized relatives, but the bluebell has them beat. The buds and blooms are a mixture of pink, periwinkle, violet, blue, and rose.
The blooms are especially sweet because they’re only here for a short time in the spring. In fact, the plant goes dormant in the summer and disappears completely. It’s best grown in a shady or part-sun environment, although I’ve also seen it quite happy in full sun. It needs a moist soil rich with organic material.
This is a great perennial to plant near a hosta. As the bluebell’s foliage starts to fade and look a little rough, the hosta leaves emerge and cover the unsightly remains. Bluebells also look good planted with celandine poppies (another native) or daffodils, because of the classic purple and yellow combination.
- Growing happily in my backyard.
2 Comments
April 9, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Kim! I’m really excited about our native bluebells right now because I just planted my first one (from Sugar Creek) last week. It went in next to a pretty little pink-flowering (I think) epimedium – they should look lovely together. There are also some clumps of ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ daffodils behind which are sort of an egg-yolky and cream mixture which should complement the bluebells perfectly. Could I encourage someone to plant bluebells near a lime-leaved hosta? Or perhaps with Peggy’s favored dicentra, the astonishing ‘Goldheart’ with yellow leaves and shocking pink flowers. We have some gorgeous ones in at Sugar Creek…
April 11, 2009 at 10:17 am
[...] hard to find a true blue in the plant world. A few that come to mind — Mertensia virginica Virginia bluebells, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides Perennial plumbago, and this little [...]