Wildflowers of all kinds tell stories of beauty in adversity, of blooming wherever you are planted ~ and these little bluets are no exception!
Bluets are widespread across much of the US, and can often be spotted as a distant blue-white haze across grassy lawns in early summer. Up close, they are striking, with bright yellow centers and petals that shimmer blue and white.
But my favorite thing about bluets is their stubborn optimism. They are just not picky about conditions. They tolerate sun, shade, drought, sandy soils, rocky soils, acid soils - even the road salt that blankets our Maine highways every winter!
During our first spring in Maine, I realized that these delicate blossoms had gently invaded the entire length of our gravel driveway. I followed them along, spotting one quarter-sized clump of teeny green leaves after another, sprouting from bare rock. Each little mound of leaves would produce one or two filament-fine stems, at the top of which a perfect four-petaled blossom would gently nod and sway. Though we drove over them every day, they were undaunted, carpeting the center of our driveway in delicate white for a month in early summer and again in early fall.
And then my next favorite thing about bluets is rescuing them! The bluets in our driveway were so cute that I wanted to move some into my front garden beds. So I scooped up the tiny clumps of gravel and leaves in a trowel and tucked them into a new tilled-and-mulched home.
Fast forward one sunny summer month, and that quarter-sized clump of cute leaves with its 1-2 spindly, delicate blossoms had piled into a giant pillow of foliage with a fistful of riotous flowers!
Bluets are now one of my favorite border plants. They expand to fill available space, but they do it very neatly, in tidy globes of green frosted with icy blue and sprinkled with sunshine yellow. And every time I look at them, I remember the moment I first discovered them, gracing the barren landscape of our gravel driveway. I remember how patiently they endured those lean conditions ~ and then I remember how joyfully they responded when their lot improved!
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It’s as though they were very grateful for being moved to a less embattled environment.
“And in appreciation of your care, concern and attention we’d like to give you this abundance of color.”
So pretty. Now I want some bluets in my garden!