Blue flowers are superb in gardens, combining easily with a wide range of colours and never out of fashion. One of the easiest to grow and most attractive of blue flowered shrubs is Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’. It’s evergreen, grows up to two metres tall, and has big heads of dark sky blue flowers over many months during summer and autumn. It looks like a hydrangea, but flowers even more prolifically, and best of all is evergreen, with large and handsome deep green leaves, so there’s year round foliage appeal. It grows happily in full sun to light shade and likes a good soil. If the soil is poor, add fertiliser and lots of compost at planting time.
One of the most attractive ways of using Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’ in the garden is as a companion to hydrangeas. Try mingling it with a variety that has lighter blue flowers and is lower growing, such as ‘Birgit Blue’, and a tall growing white variety. Add a large flowered hybrid clematis, planted at the base of the Dichroa, and you will have an amazing and lengthy flowering performance from them all.
Tall stemmed, large flowered campanulas are among many perennials which look good planted as a foreground to Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’. The large, grey-blue, bell shaped flowers of Campanula ‘Mystic Bells’ are produced for a long period as are those of the similarly shaped, deep-purple blue variety ‘Kent Belle’.
Penstemons, which flower all summer and come in a pleasing range of pink, white, wine-red and grape colourings, are also a delight to grow near Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’ in sunny situations. In lightly shaded areas, the bold foliage of native renga renga, Arthropodium cirratum ‘Matapouri Bay’, looks good with Dichroa foliage and flowers, especially in early summer when the renga renga produces its bounty of long stemmed cream flowers.
There are some exciting new perennials to try in such a situation too. The yellow foliaged, blue flowered Centaurea ‘Gold Bullion’ can be used as a striking ground cover, as can the new, cold hardy, cranesbill Geranium ‘Rozanne’ which is smothered in gorgeous blue flowers over summer and into autumn. Upright, taller growing perennials to contemplate for dramatic flowering performances and appearance include the new Hammett Dahlia varieties ‘Scarlet Fern’, with divided, mahogany coloured foliage and single, scarlet flowers, and ‘Knock Out’, with gold flowers made all the more dramatic by the dark coloured foliage.
The old fashioned shrub rose ‘Mutabilis’, which flowers all summer and autumn in most gardens, even into winter in mild climates, is even more appealing when grown beside Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’. This rose has small, butterfly-like flowers with an amazing colour range of pink, yellow, apricot and red. The colour alters as the flowers age.
Add the light blue, large shrub or small climber (it can be grown either way) Plumbago ‘Royal Cape’ to the group, preferably in the background, and there’s pleasure from their flowers all summer and autumn.
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Schemes & Themes
using Liddle Wonder Plants