Forget-Me-Not

Where it grows

Forget-me-nots grow in damp meadows, alongside streams, and through deciduous woodland from northern Europe across temperate Asia. Several species occupy mountain regions including New Zealand’s high alpine zone. The garden Myosotis sylvatica self-seeds so generously that it behaves as a perennial wherever it is grown.

How to recognise it

A low, mounding biennial fifteen to thirty centimetres tall with soft, hairy oblong leaves. Coiled flower stems uncurl as they open, producing dozens of tiny five-petaled flowers about six millimetres across in a pure pale sky blue with a yellow eye and a contrasting white ring. Pink and white forms exist but are less common.

Garden & cultural uses

Forget-me-nots are the classic spring underplanting beneath tulips and pink narcissi, their blue setting off warm bulb colours and filling out the planting until the bulbs go dormant. They form drifts in damp shade, masking dying daffodil foliage.

In symbolism

In Christian legend, God walked through Eden naming every plant; the small blue flower called out, “Forget me not, Lord!” The flower was worn by displaced ethnic Germans after WWII and by Armenians commemorating the 1915 genocide.