I bought it this spring and up to now it looks like half dead half alive, it seems like it was baked by the sun? Not all gentians are difficult. I was growing G.asclepiada for several years until it drowned last winter. I have one I bought as seed , now it's like 15 years old, unfortunately the name has been lost.

I have one that is in its third season. I have found it to be easy and trouble free, not even slightly fussy. It comes up, it blooms quite a while starting in mid-July for me here, and it has not so far seeded around at all. Mine is planted in soil that's mix of acidic fine sandy loam and old horse manure, the classic moist well-drained soil that so many plants like. It gets some spotty mid-day shade, but is in sun much of the day. The only issue I've had with it was when the cursed voles tunneled under it and ate roots, so it wilted some, but I watered it and it even recovered from that despite the weather being around 90 for about 3 weeks at the same time. The plant is about 1 1/2 feet tall and has stunning upward facing true bright blue flowers, and I would cheerfully welcome many more of these to my garden. When not in bloom it's an unobtrusive bunch of leafy green stems.

Your soil may be fairly different from mine since the parts of the Great Lakes area that I know have neutral to alkaline clay soil, so hopefully someone will respond with more similar growing condition to yours.

nhbaba wrote: but is in sun much of the day.

Funny I came across this thread having bought one a few weeks back and it is still in its pot, still unplanted. I made this impulse purchase not knowing where I would put it but I had always thought that it was a plant that could still thrive in some shade. Is this not the case?

Is it's habit upright and tight?

Have a number of different gentians, including a couple of 'True Blue'.
Picture is this mid August. Plants purchased in flower, two years ago.
Long bloom time. Both still in bloom today.

Find gentians long lived perennials. I've never grown them from seed, but apparently they're slow to get established.

Find 'True Blue' may flop a bit. Big flowers. Don't like the spent flowers (not self-cleaning), but they're not as in-your-face as say, spent balloon flower flowers.

To me, the flowers of Gentiana dahurica may be an even truer blue.

Sorry lost the picture.

Floppy and shorter than expected. Disappointing for me but perhaps not in prime location.

I've got them in sun, but still a bit floppy.

Copperbeech just reminded me of 'True Blue'.

Checked ours yesterday and they still have blooms on them; dark day and the cups aren't open. They've now had bloom on them for at least two months.

I've trimmed about a third of this one away.

The crested gentian still has some blooms on it, but the other gentians long finished blooming.

Thanks 'Sunny' for the follow-up. As I mentioned in this thread it was always my impression that this plant could perform in (much) less than full sun. Based on that, just last week I put my nursery potted single specimen in such a location. We shall see how it all turns out next season...as a gardener there is always something to look forward to.

"True Blue" looks like the gentian I planted last year without much hope of it returning - but it did very well during our hot and dry gardening season, blooming for months in a little better than half day sun in one of the damper locations in the perennial garden.

Mine also is still blooming.

Here in Europe they propagate a gentiana called Marsha. Up to now it has been looking much better than True Blue. Stands up stiffly upright and looks more robust.If it survives the winter, I will get rid of True Blue.

The name 'True Blue' is kind of accurate. Of course their are many shades of blue, so to tag this one as 'true' is a little confusing. True deep blue, perhaps would be better.
This Gentian is easy to grow, mine gets morning sun in average garden soil, and water when I think about it.

Both Marsha and True Blue survived the winter and they both look good so far(not blooming yet). Actually identical, so I'm beginning to have a suspicion, that they MAY be the same plant with 2 different names. Anybody heard something about it?

Isnt "Marsha" supposed to be more upright than "True Blue"?

Still have my two 'True Blue' gentians.

One is much smaller than the other, is still upright and doesn't look healthy to me (yellowish leaves). It may be somewhat shaded by an adjacent daylily, which I need to divide.

The other, picture below, today, looks quite healthy and is rather trailing.

For the time they bloom, perhaps statements like "perfectly proportioned for the middle of the flower bed" are geared more to sales than anything else.

Rouge, I bought them in pots in the middle of the season. At that time it looked like that. But now, after growing in the garden , they look identical to me. I find it very, very suspect. Marsha is described as a variety of G.makinoi, which it resembles . G. True blue is described as a variety of G.scabra, which it does not resemble AT ALL!!!. I sense some fudge somewhere here.
I agree with those who say there is some very faint touch of violet in the blue. Not as blue as some of my delphiniums.
Both stand very stiffly up , nothing like on the picture above.

This post was edited by wieslaw59 on Tue, Aug 20, 13 at 18:55

I also love my true blue. Mine also gets bright shade most of the day but a couple of hours of hot noon sun and blooms heavily and has been returning for several years. I have not tried to divide it but would like more. Does anyone have experience dividing this in the Fall after the long bloom period is over?