Brunnera Brilliance: Elevating Your Garden with Striking Foliage and Bright Blue Blooms

BRUNNERA 'ALEXANDER'S GREAT' (Brunnera macrophylla)

One of our signature perennials is in the spotlight this week: Brunnera!

A wonderful component of any mid-spring garden, Brunnera macrophylla provides truly one-of-a-kind foliage as well as spikes of delicate bright blue flowers through most of the spring. A relatively low growing perennial, we love using Brunnera in many different garden scenarios. It thrives in the shade, where it can serve as a nice, bright accent all season long.

The ‘Alexander’s Great’ variety is one of our favorites. It sports some of the largest foliage of any variety of brunnera, and has (in our opinion) some of the most strikingly silver and green variegation you can possibly find in the garden.

I love to see this variety of Brunnera as an accent in a shady woodland style garden, mixed in with other great foliage options in shades of green and white such as ferns, solomon’s seal, or even some smaller to medium hostas. It also works great in smaller spaces due to its instantly impactful foliage, so we love using them in city courtyard gardens, which are typically quite shady.

For really small spaces, the leaves of ‘Alexander’s Great’ might actually be TOO big. We also love the ‘Jack Frost’ variety, which carries the same style of variegation but with slightly smaller leaves. Perennials like this are great, cost-friendly options to add a spark of life to your garden instantly, and early spring is the best time to do it! Please reach out to Jason or Kerry if you’d like to see some of this in your garden!