Maybe it’s less than an obsession, but it’s certainly more than an inclination. Blue, that is. It catches my eye. If there’s a patch of blue, that’s where I look, whether it’s the firmament or a periwinkle. Can it have some physical effect on my brain? It does on my emotions. It holds my attention – partly, perhaps, because I’m half-wondering: is that really blue?
Such a broad wave-band of colours comes close, nudges or suggests blue that I’m cautious about the word. I’m quite certain, though, about one little plant I’ve just met for the first time. Its label says Lithodora diffusa, and the web tells me that we Brits have a name for it. One I’ve never heard: Purple Gromwell.
Perhaps I’ve been steeped in gardening for so long that ‘common’ names sound foreign to me. Latin comes easier. ‘How’s your gromwell coming along this year?’ sounds more like medical sympathy than horticultural enquiry. The answer is ’very nicely’. It crowns its eight-inch pot with a one-inch layer of the truest, bluest blue: tiny star flowers being constantly buzzed by a variety of bees. I’ve just spent five minutes in their company, puzzling out whether a bee visits the same flowers twice, or whether it’s a different bee, or I’ve got the wrong flower.
It’s a good time of year for blue and insects of all sorts are working hard. Forget-me-not and something else boragey but darker blue have sprung up from nowhere. So have bluebells. Violets (borderline blue, it’s true) creep out of the box hedge. Dare I mention it’s still thriving? Pansies (supposedly ‘winter’) are celebrating the sunshine, anemones will be along soon …..
If only our hydrangeas would play ball.
