Blue Dayflowers

Blue Dayflowers are one of the true blue flowers. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Blue Dayflowers

If you’ve ever looked for sky blue perennial flowers - or any blue flowers - you know they are few and far between. Unless you start paying attention to your garden “weeds,” where you may find one of the prettiest true blue flowers around.

Dayflowers tend to appear mid-summer in my mid-Missouri garden, a little pop of blue showing up among flower beds and borders. This native from Asia is now prevalent through Missouri and listed as a Missouri wildflower.

Part of the spiderwort family, Commelinaceae blooms May through frost. The plant is named after Jan and Kaspar Commelin, distinguished Dutch botanists. According to Edgar Denison in “Missouri Wildflowers,” there was a third botanist who died young. The two larger petals represent the two surviving brothers and the smaller one the botanist who died at a young age.

A group of blue dayflowers adding color to a garden corner. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

What I love about these flowers is that they require little water and easily grow in both sun and shade.

The stems will sprawl through a flower bed, nicely filing in an area with their leaves. I found myself adding starts all through my garden this fall hoping they will return next year.

Who can argue with an easy to grow perennial that easily adds a dash of true blue to a garden?

Charlotte