Like a lot of gardeners, I have a weakness for blue flowers. There's just something about blue that connects emotionally in a way that red, pink or yellow never could.

I still remember, for instance, the exact moment on a long-ago trip to California when we rounded a curve heading down into Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. There, swaying in the breeze off the ocean, in a grower's plot the size of two football fields, were thousands of Pacific Giant delphiniums in every possible shade of blue. It was electric, transfixing — and it wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact if they'd been yellow snapdragons or white daisies. Even the names we use to describe blue have a seductive quality: azure, caerulean, aquamarine, midnight, sapphire, turquoise, cobalt.

In color theory, blue is at the short-wave end of the visible spectrum, right down there next to the ultraviolet waves that only bees and butterflies detect. (There's a color we can't see that botanists call "bee-purple".) Red, on the other hand, is at the long-wave end and seems to jump out at the viewer. This high visibility is the reason most fire engines are painted red.

That means that in a garden, blue flowers tend to fade into the background, appearing nebulous in shape — think of misty clouds of catmint or lavender. Red flowers, however, tend to advance visually — think of monarda, lychnis or bright red salvia. Consequently, blue flowers and plants with bluish-gray foliage are often recommended to make a small property appear bigger, since they tend to diminish boundaries.

Those Low-Down Spring Blues

For lovers of blue blossoms, spring is a season to cherish. (Perhaps Mother Nature figured that since she was planning to inflict a shock of yellow forsythia on winter-weary eyes, it might be a good idea to come up with some cool blues to tone it down.) Blue flowers do seem luminous in spring's pale sunlight, especially beside the fresh, green foliage of emerging perennials and shrubs.

Four of our tiniest, earliest and hardiest bulbs come in subtly different shades of blue. Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) is clear blue; striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides) is pale ice-blue with dark veins; glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa forbesii) is sky-blue with a starry white center; and the flower spikes of grape hyacinths (Muscari spp.) come in many shades, e.g. pale 'Cantab', brilliant 'Heavenly Blue', 'Blue Spike' and blue-on-blue 'Cambridge and Oxford' (something to do with their school colors).

One spring perennial I could never be without is Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica). In mid-late May, as the Darwin tulips come into their own, tall slender stems disclose clusters of downfacing flowers that emerge pink in bud and then turn a delicious blue as they age. Virginia bluebells are native north-easterners that prefer moist, humus-rich soil. True "spring ephemerals", they make hay while the sun shines, growing and flowering before overhead deciduous trees have fully leafed out, then dying back completely during the summer months when they like dappled light. About 18-inches tall, they combine well with wildflowers like white Trillium grandiflorum, yellow Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) and creamy foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia).

What would a spring garden be without forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica)? Obliging, long-flowering and eager to spread, they provide the soft-blue carpet that sets off the brilliance of tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths and other bulbs. I never understand gardeners who complain about forget-me-nots "taking over". True, they look a little unsightly as they seed (and you must plant this biennial two years in a row and let it self-seed to get it established), but what other plant works so hard with so little effort from the gardener? Perennial forget-me-not (M. scorpioides) is a scrambling moisture-lover that flowers in early summer and is lovely in a bog garden or beside a pond.

One of the earliest perennials is blue lungwort Pulmonaria angustifolia. Though many gardeners opt for Pulmonaria saccharata cultivars with splashy, silver- or white-marked foliage, I prefer this simple little plant with its intense blue flowers and long, narrow, green leaves. Like all lungworts, it makes an excellent groundcover, mixing nicely with Lenten roses (Hellebores spp.) and narcissus, especially under forsythia. Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) is another woodlander with intense blue flowers, this time on 18-inch stems. It has rhizomatous roots, meaning it spreads underground, so use this to advantage and let it duke it out with other "good thugs" like yellow-flowered cushion spurge (Euphorbia polychroma) and the thicket-forming shrub Kerria japonica.

I have neither the patience nor the necessary growing conditions to grow the Holy Grail of Blues, Himalayan blue poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia). Its gorgeous, yellow-centered, blue flowers appear in late spring or early summer along with azaleas and rhododendrons, and it shares their need for humidity and rich, peaty (acid) soil in light shade. Even if you can give it these cultural conditions, it is usually short-lived in the northeast, preferring the cool, damp summers of the Pacific Northwest and Britain (although it's the pride of Quebec's gorgeous Reford Gardens). But see it once in bloom, and just try to resist growing it yourself!.

And, then, of course, there are those bewitching, beguiling blue delphiniums that transport us dreamily from the last days of spring into the first days of summer.

All in all, a spring rhapsody in blue — without a sour note in the bunch.

Adapted from an article that appeared originally at gardencrazy.com

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