Jubilee Summer Planting

I am the gardener for a Folk Museum that has a small front garden which I would like to plant up with red, white and blue flowers to fit in with the village theme for next year's Jubilee celebrations. We do not have a lot of money and so I would like something cheap, easy to grow and maintain, floriforous and all in bloom together for a fairly long time.  I am thinking of Red & White Geraniums but what for blue ?

For cheapness and lots of blue - forget-me-nots!  These will be a good foil for the heaviness of the geranium flowers.  I am doing  a similar thing for the Olympics with the five Olympic ring colours.  My blues will be salvias, eryngiums, pansies, forget-me-nots and primulas. This year my forget-me-nots seeded themselves and flowered three times and there are hundreds of plants in the garden so ,for cheapness, you could ask around the village and find someone with the same scenario.

a nice blue would be anchusa 'angel eyes' these could take over when the forget me nots have past their best.another to try are Cynoglossom(chinese forget me nots)these will also flower into autumn.i doubt a packet of seeds would be more than a few pounds and maybe one of the local gardeners could grow them for you.you could ask your local gardening club for help.

Hello Chrislobsterman,

If you're looking for blue flowers, there are two annuals you can sow that will produce beautiful intense, blue flowers just right for a union flag effect. Seed packets of Nigella damascena (love-in-a-mist) and Centaurea cyanus (annual cornflower) can easily be found in just the right shades. If you're looking for something with a good Jubilee story behind it, the annual cornflower is perfect. It was a common UK native, but almost became extinct in the wild - probably due to modern farming methods. Check out:

http://www.kew.org/msbp/plantstories/Centaurea_cyanus.htm

for the story.

Emma

gardenersworld.com team

Last season I grew cornflowers in a pot,wild seed never fails to germinate.I bought the seeds from Thompson and Morgan,they were red white and blue. Another idea for the blue colour is an easy to grow hardy annual,Phacelia tropical surf its common name is californian bluebell,also available at the same place,just sow where they are to flower April to May,bear in mind they grow to about 12 inches,they are hardy annuals.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions - I will give them some thought. In the meanwhile off to Egypt for a couple of weeks.  Ciao, Chris.