{"id":3566,"date":"2010-03-29T21:39:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T02:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=3566"},"modified":"2018-03-14T17:14:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T22:14:42","slug":"blue-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/plant-highlights\/blue-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Muscari racemosum. Blue bottles. (aka, grape hyacinths. The &#8220;grape&#8221; refers to the way the flowers are clustered like a bunch of grapes, not the color.)<\/li>\n<li>Nemophila insignis. Baby blue eyes.<\/li>\n<li>Hyacinthoides hispanica. Spanish bluebells<\/li>\n<li>Lupinus texensis. Texas bluebonnet.<\/li>\n<li>Commelinantia anomala. False dayflowers. (solid blue and a bicolor)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recently I tweeted about Suntory having GMO&#8217;d a <a href=\"http:\/\/images.google.com\/images?client=safari&#038;rls=en&#038;q=Suntory+blue+rose&#038;oe=UTF-8&#038;um=1&#038;ie=UTF-8&#038;ei=cmKxS8bmAYnaNubT7IUE&#038;sa=X&#038;oi=image_result_group&#038;ct=title&#038;resnum=4&#038;ved=0CCIQsAQwAw\">&#8220;blue&#8221; rose.<\/a> In response, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/carolinesays\">@CarolineSays<\/a> linked to a blog post by Chris Clarke <a href=\"http:\/\/faultline.org\/index.php\/site\/item\/bluerose\/\">Daze of Whine and Roses<\/a>, which scoffed at the very idea that Suntory&#8217;s rose was <strong>blue<\/strong>. Lilac or mauve, maybe, but not blue.<\/p>\n<p>In flower terms, &#8220;blue&#8221; is a pretty expansive color term&#8211;just like black, which typically is a really, really, deep red. So I decided to inventory my own blue flowers. Of course, the camera lies. Depending upon the settings in your camera, the setting on your monitor, or any number of other variables (photos shot in full sunlight, bright shade, full shade), colors are going to differ.<\/p>\n<p>Massed, bluebonnets are a deep indigo or jewel-toned blue. (At least mine are. Some are a more pale sky blue.) Spanish bluebells look anemic beside them. Baby blue eyes are a hazy day sky blue. But in the photo they look almost lavender&#8230;or like my favorite crayon as a child &#8220;periwinkle blue&#8221;. In life, false dayflowers are an electric, aniline blue. In my photo, they have a reddish tint compared with the bluebonnets.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to see if some of the &#8220;lavender&#8221; blues looked more like blue when compared to flowers that I think of as purple in the garden: Texas mountain laurel, tradescantia, and verbena. And they do. The color of  the Suntory rose seems similar to the periwinkle blue of the rosemary and baby blue eyes.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/400\/20100329purpleflowers.jpg\" alt=\"blue flowers\" \/><br \/><i>Purple and blue flowers blooming at Zanthan Gardens on March 29, 2010<\/i><\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m not going to get on Suntory because their new flower isn&#8217;t really &#8220;blue&#8221;. Rather, I&#8217;m still disappointed that they think developing a blue rose is worth messing around with genetically modified organisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/400\/20100328blueflowers.jpg\" alt=\"blue flowers\" \/><br \/><i>Blue flowers blooming at Zanthan Gardens on March 28, 2010<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[117,246,297,322,334],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5666,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions\/5666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}