Yellow daffodils and blue pansies celebrate Indiana’s bicentennial. © Jahina_photos/dollarphotoclub.com
Indiana celebrates its bicentennial this year and you can commemorate the 200th birthday by planting blue and gold flowers, the colors of our state’s flag.
The Indiana Bicentennial Commission and the Garden Club of Indiana have partnered to promote the effort, especially in public spaces, but also in our landscapes and ornamental containers. Neighborhoods, condos, apartment complexes, cities and towns could deck their entryways with blue and yellow plants. Businesses can plant lovely blue and gold, flowerpots by their doors or in window boxes on the building.
It’s easy to get these hues in spring, because readily available pansies and violas come in blues and golds. Other spring options: gold or yellow ranunculus, snapdragons or forced daffodils with blue pansies or violas. Under plant some yellow or gold daffodils or tulips in the landscape with blue violas, or place a pot of blue pansies nearby.
Summer is even easier, although as Purdue University horticulturist Rosie Lerner says, “Some blue flowers are more purple than blue, and likewise, some gold flowers are more yellow.”
Some of my favorites for summer: Any of the annual blue salvias, such as ‘Victoria Blue’, ‘Black and Blue’, or ‘Mystic Spires’. Mix these with yellow or gold marigold, zinnia, calibrachoa or moss rose (Portulaca grandiflora). The salvias also would go well with an annual black-eyed Susan, or gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta), or the perennial (R. fulgida). There’s a golden yellow annual tickseed called plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) and perennial types (C. lanceolata or C. verticillata), including ‘Jethro Tull’, ‘Early Sunrise’, ‘Zagreb’ or ‘Moonbeam’.
For fall, reuse the blue salvias with some crisp, yellow mums. Pansies and snapdragons also hang tough in fall, and you’ll find timely, fresh crops of these in garden centers.
Winter, of course, is a challenge, but not without hope. Hang onto the cool-season pansies and put them in a pot around a small boxwood or dwarf Alberta spruce. This combo will work well in an all-weather container in an exposed location, or a ceramic or terra cotta pot in a protected area.
Just one pot with the flag’s colors is enough to cheer happy 200th birthday, Indiana. For more suggestions of blue and gold flowers, please download Lerner’s list, or one from the Garden Club of Indiana.