No, I don’t mean singin’ the blues. I mean great late-season plants with blue flowers.

In my garden right now there are three that are either blooming their little heads off or getting ready to do so.

The first plant is the great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), a native perennial named by the settlers for their belief that it cured….well, look at the species name and you can figure it out. Presumably the settlers found themselves in need of a cure and were hoping big time that this was it.

Photo Courtesy of Allendan Seed Company

This plant is very happy in my yard. So happy, in fact that it is colonizing. One clump has become three and the “babies” are bigger than their mother. The blue lobelia started blooming in mid-August and is continuing into September. Flowers appear on spikes about 24 to 30 inches tall.

In my sand-based soil near the lake I can’t grow the gorgeous red cardinal flower (L. cardinalis). I tried, and it just got smaller and smaller until it shrank into oblivion. Cardinal flower is a native but to moist soils. If you have a water garden or a stream, cardinal flower will thrive alongside it.

Photo Courtesy of Bailey Nurseries

Stay tuned for the future installments.

—Carolyn Ulrich