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Pantone is a global authority on colour, working with art and fashion houses, hotel and entertainment industries, decorators and landscapers to predict colour trends.
The Pantone 2020 Colour of the Year, Classic Blue, is a deep blue that is anchoring, constant and timeless. It’s seen in the distance of the sky and the depth of the ocean, in the whiskered face of a pansy and in a bowl of blueberries.
Inspiration from art
Plants rambling over an electric blue Lutyens bench make for a bold display in the border. Picture: Marinus Haakman
The blue gemstone, lapis lazuli, was mined as early as 7000 BC in Afghanistan and carved into decorative objects by ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks.
Shades of lapis lazuli blue, a natural ultramarine, were famously used as a pigment by 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in his paintings. Lapis lazuli blue was also used by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo in the painting of the Last Judgement on the altar wall in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City.
Ultramarine and cobalt blue were used by Vincent van Gogh in one of his finest paintings, The Starry Night (1889). More recently, a combination of five different blue pigments, known as Mccreedyblue, lie at the heart of the inspired paintings of internationally acclaimed 33-year-old Sandton-born artist, Conor Mccreedy.
Just as poetry, painting and music portray the feelings of writers, artists and musicians, so does the garden, where colour is an expression of the gardener’s sentiments.
Blue gardens
Agapanthus ‘Midnight Blue’ is a compact variety, suitable for smaller spaces. Picture: New Plant Nursery
Blue is one of the most loved colours in the garden, one of three primary colours, and the fifth colour in the rainbow. In its many tints and tones, blue is a colour of many moods, clear or misty, dramatic or romantic, mysterious and moody, nostalgic and comforting.
In gardens, blue represents fantasy and is often a symbol of another world. “In (Gatsby’s) blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars,” wrote F Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. Similarly, the sacred gardens of the mythical planet of Pandora, in the movie Avatar, are planted up in shades of blue.
Pantone’s Classic Blue is a strong colour and can be used to add drama to a grouping, as a focal point, or to draw attention to a particular feature. Paler blues are best used on the perimeter of a garden to accentuate a feeling of faraway blue hills and give the optical illusion of distance.
Blue plants
There are 44 families of plants that have blooms in shades of blue. Some of our prettiest wildflowers are in shades of blue - agapanthus that grows in rocky grasslands, the Cape forget-me-not (Anchusa capensis) and wild flax (Heliophila coronopifolia) of Namaqualand, edging lobelia (Lobelia erinus) and felicia of dunes and scrub and tall aristea (Aristea major) of wetlands.
In cooler months, an indigenous planting among weathered rocks of the hedgehog sage (Pycnostachys urticifolia), with bright blue conical flower heads and the colloquial name of "witch’s hat", contrasted with orange watsonia and the tiered flowers of wild dagga (Leonotis leonurus) works well.
Blue in the border
The anise-scented sage (Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’) provides nectar for butterflies. Picture: Kay Montgomery
Delphiniums in many shades of blue are the aristocrats of the late spring and early summer border. They need firm staking to the tip of the flower stems, as their heavy heads are easily broken by rain and strong winds.
Bearded irises come in shades of blue, as do many types of salvia. Upright spikes and showy deep blue flowers make S "Victoria Blue" a popular choice in borders, as does S "Mystic Spires" with dark grey-green leaves and purple-blue flowers. Anise-scented sage (S guaranitica "Black and Blue") has cobalt-blue flower spikes with dark almost black calyces and stems; S "Blue Enigma" is shorter in height.
Other flowers for the border, in various shades of blue, include campanula, cornflower, the balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus), nigella "Love-in-a-mist", sub-shrub blue milkwood (Tweedia caerulea) with sky blue starry flowers, Ceratostigma (leadwort), borage, browallia and bunchleaf penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus).
If an “all blue” border seems a little monotonous, follow the example of the great Victorian gardener, Gertrude Jekyll, who was an experienced colourist. She believed that a blue border could be even more effective when lemon flowers were introduced in small proportions. Blue and yellow are also colours favoured by bees.
Surround a sundial with blue pansies; where blue hydrangeas grow in dappled shade and moist soil, give a pathway a ribbon of forget-me-nots. Grow the hardy plumbago, and its darker blue cultivar "Royal Cape", that carry posies of blue flowers intermittently through the year over arches, fences and walls.
More ways with blue
A Delft planter draws attention to the blue door beyond the pathway. Picture: Marinus Haakman
Don’t limit the use of blue shades to plants in a garden. Paint a wall, garden gates and archways, pots and benches, trellis and arbours in shades of blue, and echo this in blue flowers in pots, on the trellis and alongside the arches.
Whether you use Classic Blue in the garden or one of the many other charming tints and tones of blue, you will have beautiful floral compositions to enjoy throughout the seasons.