Sacramento Digs Gardening: Midsummer blues: Sparklers in July garden

Blue hydrangeas are just starting to bloom. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)

This flower hue adds vibrance to summer landscape

Stokesia comes in many cool

shades.

Blue ranks among the rarest colors in the summer garden. Yet it's a beautiful contrast to all of July's other brilliant colors, especially yellow and orange.

Blue stands out in the landscape, immediately drawing your attention. Bees seem to gravitate to it, too.
The one trait most blue flowers share is they contain anthocyanin, the same pigment that makes blueberries blue.

As an accent or in broad borders, blue blooms complete a flowery summer rainbow. An Independence Day bouquet wouldn't have the same sparkle without some blue.

Just in time for Fourth of July and midsummer, here are the blues blooming in my Sacramento garden right now:

Hydrangeas: My true blues are just coming into their bloom cycle. By late July, they'll be covered with great soft mounds of baby blue. Formerly pink hydrangeas can go blue, too, by slightly increasing the acidity of their soil.

Stokesia: This low-growing perennial blooms from early July until frost. It comes in several shades of vivid blue from powder to deep cobalt. My variety: Blue Frills from Proven Winners. It contrasts beautifully with orange coppertips ( Crocosmia ) and yellow daylilies. Stokesia also makes a good cut flower; pair it with white daisies and red roses or gladiolas for a charming red-white-blue bouquet.

Agapanthus blossoms attract bees.

Lilies of the Nile: My huge agapanthus clumps came with the house. But the bees love them, so they stayed put. Every Fourth of July, the gigantic flowerheads look like blue fireworks exploding among the roses. Another plus: They make good cut flowers and add the blue to my Independence Day bouquets. The dried stems also are attractive in arrangements.

Borage, a blue herb, has edible flowers.

Borage: This blue herb is a bee favorite in my vegetable garden and the intensely blue (and slightly spicy) flowers are edible. Use them as decorations on cakes and cupcakes.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

agapanthus borage cut flowers gardening Sacramento blue flowers summer flowers flowers

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Food in My Back Yard Series

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of April 20

Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

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