Blue is not the colour you associate with foliage but if you can bend your eyes just a little around the silver – grey through to green spectrum there may be some surprises.

In Praise of Blue Foliage

• A very distinctive colour attracts the eye in a uniformly green garden
• Blue works very well with dark coloured leaves such as purples
• Blue tends to increase the perceived depth of view making blue recede.
• A fine blue line separates glaucous leaves and silver foliage.
• Perception of colour is best left to the beholder

Blue Leaved Primulas

• The bloom or farina on may primulas can look blue. See the Primula kewensis at the foot of the page.
• Auriculas often display the blue dust.
• Primrose ‘Arctic Blue’ has deep green leaves but on a frosty morning their foliage turns to shades of icy blue

Perennial Plant selection from The Oregon

• Acaena ‘Blue Haze’
• Cynara cardunculus (cardoon)
• Dianthus gray blue
• Dicentra ‘Stuart Boothman,’ ‘Langtrees’
• Eryngium (more gray-green, but you can’t beat those blue bracts)
• Euphorbia (lots, particularly ‘Portuguese Velvet’)
• Hosta (tons, check out ‘Albiqua Drinking Gourd’ as well as classics such as H. sieboldiana ‘Elegans’
• Mertensia asiatica,
• Ruta graveolens ‘Jackman’s Blue’ (rue)
• Sedum ‘Bertram Anderson’ ( blue bruised purple), S. telphium, S. cauticola and some other succulent plants

Shrubs and trees

• Abies pinsapo ‘Glauca,’ ‘Hortmann’ (blue Spanish pin fir)
• Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’ (blue atlas cedar)
• Cupressus glabra ‘Blue Ice’ (Arizona cypress)
• Eucalyptus (close your eyes and pick)
• Hebe (quite a few silver-blue, including H. albicans, H. x wardiensis and H. pimeleoides ‘Quicksilver’)
• Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Carpet,’ J. virginiana ‘Blue Mountain’
• Melianthus major
• Picea pungens (Colorado blue spruce — an awesome selection)
• Rosa glauca

Grasses

• Andropogon virginicus glauca ‘Valdosta Blue’ (good old gorgeous bluestem)
• Elymus magellanicus (a very blue form of Lyme grass)
• Festuca cinerea ‘Elijah Blue’ (blue fescue)
• Helictotrichon sempervirens (blue oat grass; check out ‘Sapphire’)
• Panicum virgatum ‘Dallas Blues,’ ‘Prairie Sky’ and of course ‘Heavy Metal’
• Leymus arenarius

Rockery plants often take on a blue hue. The plants that display blue may be reacting to moisture more than chlorophyll
.