Chaenarrhinum Summer Skies

A True-Blue Trailing Beauty — Rare but So Easy and Quick to Grow!

Blooms the first year from seed! For something completely different and utterly beautiful, why not fill your hanging baskets and windowboxes with super-easy, long-blooming Summer Skies. This warm-climate perennial blooms the first year from seed, stands up nicely to heat, and loves the baking-hot sun of patio and porch. Few gardeners have been lucky enough to see, let alone grow, this unusual plant.

Yet it will keep you in blooms for weeks in mid- to late summer, then return for years of repeat performances.Chaenarrhinum (now there’s a plant that needs a down-home common name!) is a trailing type, reaching 8 to 10 inches tall and tumbling 12 to 18 inches down from baskets and windowboxes. The blooms are 1/2-inch across, of vivid azure dotted with a tiny yellow eye. They are nicely offset by small, teardrop-shaped leaves of grayish-green. But the best part about these flowers is their sheer abundance.

Talk about strength in numbers. For weeks on end, they arise in great masses all over the plant.Summer Skies is perennial in zones 6-9, but if you live farther north, don’t hesitate to grow it as an annual. It flowers the first year — in fact, it flowers in about 10 weeks from sowing. Just find it a sunny spot in well-drained soil and let it cascade.

Zones 6-9.
Pkt is 30 seeds.