Easy Garden Rainbows - Blue

Perennial Blue Sage The genus Salvia is huge. In it you will find annual red salvias used in borders, cooking sage, and many others. This species represents it's relatives well with a strong upright habit, funky smell, and long-lasting flowers.

Salvia nemorosa 'Blue Queen' starts it's year as a clump of rough-looking foliage. By May it has made it clear that it's main pursuit is to produce spikes of blue flowers, each supported by a rosy-purple bract. The flower fades, the bracts remain, and more new spikes emerge, normally until mid-fall. 'Rose Queen,' 'East Freisland' and 'Blue Hill' grow the same way.

This plant needs full sun to do really well in the garden, but makes up for that requirement with exellent drought tolerance and a preference for poor soil.

Looking for Salvia divinorium? Check here.

California Lilacs California Lilacs are a very handsome evergreen shrub with small, glassy-green leaves, and many species have lovely, lightly-scented powder blue flowers. The hardiest Ceanothus is the Blue Blossom (C. thyrsiflorus). This one grows to 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide, but normally keeps a rounded shape with little pruning. If you live in USDA zone 8 or above, you can also grow Ceanothus 'Blue Jeans', which is a rangier shrub with light blue flowers. Anywhere warmer and you can probably grow them all.

Ceanothus are very drought tolerant, and don't mind poor soil. If you have the space to spare, all most will need is a little directional pruning for shape. All must have full sun to bloom properly. Click here to see a picture of a fully grown Ceanothus thyrsiflorus.

Blue Ravine Clematis The Blue Ravine Clematis is a University of British Columbia Introduction, but was hybridized in a spontaneous cross between 'Nelly Moser' and 'Ramona' in about 1978 in the garden of Conrad Erlandson of Abbotsford, B.C. He later gave it to the Botanical Garden for registration, propagation and release.

This is the only really good, easy true-blue clematis there is, but it's care is the same as for the others. For more information on Clematis, see... Use Blue Ravine as a flowering vine on a fence, trellis or arbor or climbing up a tree or scrambling over shrubs. They bloom in May and June, with intermittant blooms though summer.

It is a pruning group B type Clematis, so some pruning may be done in

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