Blue & Gold gardens

Celebrate bicentennial with colors

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Posted on Mar 01 2016 in Backyard, General, Outdoors

By B. Rosie Lerner

Photo by Mike Dana, Purdue Horticulture & Landscape Architecture

Photo by Mike Dana, Purdue Horticulture & Landscape Architecture

To celebrate Indiana’s bicentennial this year, the Garden Club of Indiana and the Indiana Bicentennial Commission are hoping gardeners will join the Blue & Gold garden tribute to Indiana’s state flag. It’s an easy way for all Indiana residents to commemorate the bicentennial. If you don’t have a traditional garden bed, there are many fine choices for container gardens.

There’s a vast array of garden flowers that can fit in the blue-and-gold theme. Some “blue” flowers are more purple than blue and, likewise, some “gold” flowers are more yellow. Most annual flowers will bloom throughout the growing season.

The following flowers can be grown throughout the state. All are full-sun plants unless otherwise noted.

Annuals with Blue Flowers

(Note: Some may be purplish blue.)

Ageratum

Alyssum

Anagallis

Angelonia

Aster

Bacopa

Borage

Brachyscome (swan river daisy)

Browalia (semi-shade)

Calibrachoa

Callistephus (China aster)

Cornflower

Felicia (blue daisy)

Forget-Me-Not

Heliotrope

Limonium (annual statice)

Lisianthus

Lobelia (semi-shade)

Mimulus (shade)

Morning Glory

Nemesia

Nicotiana

Nierembergia (semi-shade)

Nigella

Pansy

Petunia

Phlox

Salvia

Scaevola (fan flower)

Sweet Pea

Torenia

Verbena

Yellow/Gold-Flowered Annuals

African Daisy

Begonia, Tuberous (semi-shade, shade)

Bidens

Calendula

Calibrachoa

California Poppy

Coreopsis

Cape Marigold

Celosia

Coleus (some with yellow foliage)

Cosmos

Dahlia

Four O’Clock

Gaillardia

Gazania

Gerbera

Iresine (some with yellow foliage)

Lantana

Marguerite Daisy

Marigold

Melampodium

Mimulus

Nasturtium (semi-shade)

Nemesia

Nicotiana

Pansy

Petunia

Portulaca

Rudbeckia

Sanvitalia

Snapdragon

Strawflower

Sunflower

Thunbergia

Tithonia

Torenia

Zinnia

For more information on Indiana’s bicentennial activities, see www.indianagardenclub.org/ and www.in.gov/ibc/.

For more information on annuals, see Purdue Extension: hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-99W.pdf and hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-080.pdf.


Rosie Lerner is the Purdue Extension consumer horticulturist and a consumer of Tipmont REMC. Questions about gardening issues may be sent to: “Ask Rosie,” Electric Consumer, P.O. Box 24517, Indianapolis, IN 46224, orec@ElectricConsumer.org