Anagallis monelli Skylover - Blue Pimpernel seeds

The Monel blue pimpernel or Anagallis monelli Skylover is a delightful annual plant with incredibly intense gentian blue flowers that rivals the more well-known lobelias in popularity for use in flower beds and hanging baskets. With its attractive spreading and carpeting habit, and abundant flowering in summer, this variety is a stunning descendant of the wild pimpernel that roams through fallow land and along paths in the Western Mediterranean. Its flowers open in the morning and close in the afternoon, with narrow, rolled-edge, deep green leaves. This plant is highly decorative in rock gardens, borders, pots, and hanging baskets, where it will quickly spread. It thrives in heat, sun, well-drained soil, and can tolerate drought when planted in the ground.

The Anagallis monelli Skylover is a perennial plant but is frost-sensitive and short-lived, usually grown as an annual. It belongs to the primrose family. It is an improved variety of the Monel pimpernel, native to Morocco, southern Italy, and Portugal, where it is found in uncultivated areas and along paths. The plant forms carpeting clumps of 20-30 cm (8-12in) in all directions in just a few months, with woody stems at the base, ascending or prostrate, rooting at the nodes. They are covered with small leaves 1.5 cm (1in) long and 5 mm (0in) wide, lanceolate, with rolled edges, a fairly dark and shiny green, and covered with glandular hairs. Flowering occurs from June to September. The flowers have 5 cup-shaped petals, with an intense gentian blue colour contrasting with a small pinkish-violet center and a cluster of yellow stamens. They open in the morning and close in the mid-afternoon in hot weather.

The Skylover blue pimpernel is perfect in rock gardens, often paired with pussytoes, chickweeds, fragrant alyssums, or late spring-flowering bulbs (garlic, camassias, galtonias). In the front of borders, it pairs well with dwarf snapdragons, candytufts, California poppies, and linarias, among others. In hanging baskets or containers, the intense flower colour and shiny foliage complement the flowering of bacopas and scaevolas. It always makes a perfect match with lobelias and surfinias. You can also use it to decorate larger pots, at the base of taller perennials, which this wanderer will pleasantly invade.

Note: Please be aware that our young plug plants are professional products intended for experienced gardeners. Upon receipt, transplant them as soon as possible into pots, hanging baskets, or directly into flower beds.