Growing Blue Flowering Shrubs
Below you will find a list of Shrubs from our plant database that are blue flowering. If you click any of the photos, you will see a Virtual Plant Tag that may contain plant descriptions, usage suggestions and a link to where you can buy that plant for your landscaping. The concept of a shrub can be difficult to define since different people might consider the same plant a groundcover, broadleaf evergreen, bush or tree.
Several of these flowering shrubs are native plants, which are more naturally insect resistant, salt tolerant and have natural disease resistance. Catawba Rhododendrons are among the hardiest Rhododendrons and have a beautiful range of bloom colors including lavender-blue. Leadplant Amorpha (Amorpha canescens) is not well known but deserves more use for landscaping because it resembles the non-native and sometimes invasive Butterfly Bush or Summer Lilac (Buddleja or Buddleia davidii), is a low maintenance shrub and is also drought tolerant. Mescal Bean which is also known as Texas Mountain Laurel or Sophora secundiflora has lacy foliage texture with blue and purple spring flowers.
Less well-known plants can be fun to try and enjoy their differences. Suggestions of more unusual shrubs with blue blooms are: Beach Vitex, Chastetree or Vitex rotundifolia which blooms in the fall; gaining popularity for the striking blue summer flowers is Blue-mist Shrub, Blue-spirea, Bluebeard or Caryopteris x clandonensis; interesting for use as a hedge is Golden Dewdrop, Pigeon Berry or Sky Flower from the species of Duranta erecta and D. repens; some Rose of Sharon or Shrub Althea have blue flowers.
What may be confusing or surprising about this list of blue flowering shrubs are the pictures with pink flowers. In Bigleaf Hydranges (H. macrophylla) the color of the flower is determined by the pH of the soil. Acidic soil (pH 5-5.8) will produce blue flowers and Alkaline soils (pH 6-7) will flower pink.
Also consider Hydrangea serrata, known as Blood-on-the-snow, Japanese Mountain Hydrangea and Tea of Heaven, which is hardier than H. macrophylla.
Blue flowering plants add serenity to a garden and can even make a hot garden feel a bit cooler with their cool colors. Shrubs with blue flowers are not as common as many other colors, so the key to enjoying the color is planting a variety of different types of blooming plants including flowering annuals, perennials and vines that bloom at different times in spring, summer and autumn. The relaxing blue can be enjoyed throughout the season and blends well with the other cool colors of purple, pink and white.
