But the Campanula 'Kent Belle' did, and is every bit as lovely and abundant as the catalog photos - an achievement when you consider that I forgot it was there until I saw flowers.
There are other campanulas scattered through the beds including C. carpatica 'Blue Clips' - give this baby a haircut at mid-summer and it soon starts sending up little blue bowls of blossoms all over again. I like 'Blue Clips; with Coreopsis verticillata 'Moonbeam' - the first yellow plant ever allowed in my garden. (I don't count daffodils.) Pale yellow and deep blue is a combination that dreams should be made of.
A blue Platycodon (balloon flower) has also been good about popping up with gorgeous blue blossoms every time I decide that it must be done for the season. And a robust clump of Nepeta subsessilus has been putting forth blue flowers all summer - much larger and bluer than the more familiar Nepeta faasenii. But I have that and it, too, is sending out clouds of blue flowers. I used a lot of ajuga in that area of the yard, and it too is sending up blue flowers, as it has been doing all summer.
Some salvias are always reliable when it comes to producing a long season of flowers - my 'Blue Queen' has kept going for weeks now with minimal deadheading. And so has Veronica 'Goodness Grows' - a beautiful blue that deserves a spot in every garden. Its sister, 'V. 'Sunny Border Blue' won the perennial of the year award a few years back and I have always wondered why as it doesn't flower as abundantly or for as long as 'Goodness Grows'. I have one in front of a huge clump of Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' and admire the combination of rosy purple and cobalt. I am tempted to add a big clump of Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum' because brilliant blue and that blazing gold would, I'm certain, look magnificent together. Another fronts white Phlox paniculata 'David' - a look that is both serene and cooling.
And now the asters are blue lobelia are beginning to flower. The blue asters are still only in bud, but should be doing their show full steam by next week - and meanwhile I have the lavender ones to tide me over.
Now don't you agree that this is an astounding amount of blue to find in the garden of someone who never really thought about blue in the garden? I got the nepetas strictly because I liked their look as edging plants, and the buddleias because of the swarms of butterflies that hovered near them at the nurseries. I grow the campanulas that I chose simply because they keep going so long, and the caryopteris because they have such amazing turquoise colored leaves in spring time. I never tried to make blue predominate in my garden - mainly because I keep hearing about how rare blue is in flower colors.
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