Blue Ajuga

Blue-flowered Ajuga or Creeping Bugle. Ajuga reptans is a creeping perennial prized for its small spikes of blue flowers, so bright in the shade. This plant has produced many blue varieties that offer different colours of foliage: for example the very dark leaves of Ajuga reptans 'Black Scallop' or 'Atropurpurea', or the variegated ones of 'Burgundy Glow'. Some cultivars offer golden foliage, such as 'Petite Parakeet'. The excellent hybrid 'Chocolate Chip' (Valfredda), capable of preventing weeds, can be planted in large masses in the lawn, which it will colour with small blue candles in spring. All these plants have glossy, evergreen leaves in winter, decorative in all seasons. Thanks to their stolons, these perennials spread quickly and form dense carpets that come alive with beautiful upright spikes in shades of blue to purple between spring and summer. Petite, essential plants in cool, moist, and even clayey soils, creeping bugles thrive both in the shade of the undergrowth and on cool slopes and not too dry rockeries.