Turquoise Flowers - Planting Design Ideas

This turquoise flowers article is a result of an often asked question: –

“Where do you find the inspiration to design gardens and create such gorgeous planting schemes?”

(And thanks Jane for the question, the blog idea it sparked and of course your kind words about the finished design😊)

Planting Design ideas come from many sources. It’s not always the obvious inspiration from a show garden or lush herbaceous border in an historic house garden. Indeed, I once had the ’kerching’ moment for a garden design on seeing a display of loaves in a bakery shop window!

How did I get to the colour turquoise in particular?

Turquoise, along with purple, is one of my favourite colours: Which is one of the reasons why Plews colours are purple and turquoise.

But that doesn’t mean to say that I immediately think of turquoise for flowers when creating a planting design! (Or purple either if it comes to that) The client and I will have discussed colours as well as types of plants during the early stages of their design concept. Indeed, a design for planting, as distinct from a garden design which will include a planting scheme, will consider colours from the beginning. It’s often one of the first things a client will mention even before naming plants. For example, “I really like pink” or “I don’t like yellow”.

The question I was asked didn’t immediately spark the idea for turquoise flowers. Rather it came later, whilst I was sipping tea and gazing unfocussed out of the window. I was in the middle of creating a design for an ornamental edible front garden; considering which fruit bushes would suit the garden’s aspect. And what shrubs would both extend and vary the interest year round – a front garden is one you see every day after all.

Placing the cup back on its saucer, it caught my eye. It was turquoise. How lovely that would be as a highlight amongst softer shades in an herbaceous flower border, I thought. And then I began to ponder on whether it would be possible to have a planting design based on turquoise flowers.

Quickly I made a note and then re-focussed my thoughts on the creating the design for the ornamental edible front garden. But now I’m sharing my thoughts for turquoise flowers and berries, to discover if they excite you too.

Herbaceous Perennials with Turquoise Flowers

Eryngium planum, Sea holly

A tremendous perennial for coastal gardens and sandy soils. Blue leaves, blue stems, blue bracts, blue flowers, all with a turquoise glow to them in the sunlight.
A superb architectural plant, the seedheads on tall stems add structure to the winter garden.

Pulmonaria, Lungwort

A reliable ground cover clump forming herbaceous plant for most soils. Flowers may be pink, purple, blue or white. Notable for its white spotted foliage that gave rise to the common name, although there are plain green-leaved varieties. Pulmonaria ‘Lewis Palmer’ has the most turquoise of the blue flowered forms.

Delphinium

Another statuesque perennial, Delphiniums dislike wet, heavy soils in shade and will blow over in strong winds if not staked. Delphinium
‘Centurion Sky Blue’ would be my choice for our turquoise theme, with striking light azure blue flowers.

Allium caeruleum

Allium caeruleum, Allium azreum, the blue flowered ornamental garlic. This is a pretty heirloom allium which is certainly a turquoise blue in my garden.

Shrubs with Turquoise Flowers

Hydrangea

There are plenty of blue Hydrangeas and some do tend towards a turquoise hue. For flowers which are turquoise blue, try Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Blue Danube‘ and ‘Nikko Blue’, both mop head Hydrangeas. Generally speaking for blue Hydrangeas you’ll need an acid soil (see blog link below)

Hibiscus

Hibiscus flowers, sometimes called tree hollyhock, always look exotic in shape and colour. They do need full sun to flower well. Hibiscus syriacus ‘Oiseau Bleu’ or Blue Bird has turquoise flowers with purple centres – a stunning combination.

Shrubs with Turquoise Berries

I am not apologising, these two shrubs with turquoise berries are worth including as they will extend the colour theme into autumn and even winter.

Clerodendrum trichotomum var. fargesii

Also known as Harlequin glorybower. Definitely one of the most startling of shrubs with autumn berries! Pea-sized metallise turquoise blue berries are backed by pinkish magenta lobes.

Viburnum Davidii

Viburnum Davidii is a low growing evergreen shrub with gorgeous turquoise autumn berries. NB you’ll need both male and female plants for berries

Annuals, biennials, Climbers

I’m including this section predominantly for those gardeners who may be renting their property and not want to plant many or any perennial. You can still have turquoise flowers.

Forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica

Forget-me-nots can have flowers of blue, pink or white flowers but most commonly blue, with a range of shades that will include turquoise and baby blue. I’d suggest looking for a plant in flower rather than sowing seeds to get the right colour.

Love in Mist, Nigella damascena

The name Love in Mist is derived from the airy foliage, and Nigella is an excellent annual which will happily self seed (easy maintenance gardening!) The seed heads are pretty and the seeds inside are edible – I use mine as an alternative to poppy seeds. Flowers are normally an array of paler blues and turquoise, but you will also find whites and pale pinks.

Ipomoea indica, Morning glory

Ipomoea indica, the blue morning glory is a climbing, twining plant. It may need to treated as an annual in the UK unless the garden is sheltered. I rather like the purple veining as it combines my two favourite colours!

What are the Benefits of Turquoise Flowers for Pollinating Insects?

For a fuller discussion of this topic check out my article Why Do Bees Like Purple Flowers? (link below) But, put briefly, flowers in the violet-blue range produce the highest volumes of nectar, which makes them especially attractive to bees, pollinating wasps, butterflies and hoverflies. The flowering plants I’ve mentioned above are all good for a wildlife garden for that reason.

And, not only but also, the seeds in the ornamental seedheads are tasty for garden birds to eat. Plus our selection of shrubs with turquoise berries provide food for birds and small mammals. Because of course a wildlife garden is not just about bees and butterflies.

And Finally…

If you think I haven’t mentioned many turquoise flowers, there’s a reason for that. Of the 280,000 different types of flowering plants on earth, only about 10 % of them are blue. If you do the math, that’s about 28,000. Which sounds like masses to choose from. But that’s before we’ve begun to be more precise in the shade of blue – or turquoise. And then ignored all those – probably most of them – that are too tender to grow outside in the UK. To enjoy turquoise flowering plants often means wandering through tropical house in botanic gardens. for other blue flowers which will thrive in UK gardens check out the blog below.

If you would like help with creating a garden based around a particular colour theme or to have blue and turquoise flowers as a planting design do get in touch. Plews is able to offer you just the design or a full service.
For further inspiration check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, and find us on Instagram and Facebook