This Week It's Lobelia

Blue is the colour, but which varieties get Graham’s thumbs up?

- Graham Rice

THE blue of lobelia can be the most exciting, most penetrating blue you’ll find in the garden. However, lobelia for patios and summer borders also comes in other colours, as well as in both trailing and bushy versions – each of which is suited to different garden situations.

It is not hard to see why lobelia is so popular. Aside from that unique and brilliant blue, these plants offer billowing clouds of colour in hanging baskets and tubs, and will intermingle prettily with other container plants. Meanwhile, the tight hummocks of the bedding varieties, once so popular in seaside planting schemes, work well in borders. And the best varieties will flower from June until the first frosts.