Mottisfont Abbey plant id

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First let me say I'm sorry I have no photos. I visited Mottisfont rose garden this week & saw 2 amazing, tall plants there which I didn't recognise:

1. Maybe 3' tall, sparse mid-green, long, thin leaves from the base of the stem with a texture like a pot marigold leaf. Flowers way above the foliage were bright blue with a white centre & maybe an inch across.
2. A bit taller, divided slightly blue-green foliage & very unusual flowers: small clusters of bright yellow stand-up fluff with no petals visible.

1 Maybe a delphinium if the flowers were in spikes?

2 Thalictrum? Though not sure about the bright yellow

www.rhs.org.uk/plants/98203/thalictrum-flavum-subsp-glaucum/details ?

You could email them and ask them...? They're so nice there, my mum volunteered there a long time ago.

Was the first one standing up by itself or climbing up some sort of support? It sounds a bit small for delphinium.

I'm going to the jazz evening tomorrow and will look out for them so I can ask a gardener. Do you have any idea whereabouts you saw them?

I used to grow a yellow thalictrum, though mine was more lemon coloured.

yes, that's what I was thinking. One of the wild Thalictrums is pale yellow.

Something with the species name "flavum" ("yellow") has to be a good bet

I was thinking the easiest would be for another visitor to find them and photograph them. Didn't think we'd be lucky enough to actually have someone visiting in the next few days!

I'll do my best but would appreciate a bit more guidance! Were they single plants? Big clumps? Near anything else in particular?

They're in the middle one of the 3 walled gardens on the map, where the no dogs, no footballs signs are (see attched map).

I think the blue one was in a border next to the outside wall, & the yellow one was in the centre & almost backed onto a macleaya cordata.

Hope this helps. Enjoy the jazz!

I've answered you first, so I haven't checked anyone's suggestions yet. Someone might have the answer.

I think PP are right about the thalictrum, thanks. I was torn between saying lemon or bright. The sun was fierce & it was a strong yellow. I've just searched the photos on tripadvisor, & this is it (attached).

The blue one is probably not a delphinium. Annoyingly, the other day I found a photo of it on a review of MA, but it was very blurry - & now I can't find it at all.

Could the blue one be a campanula? Campanula persicifolia

There were campanulas in the gardens, but I don't think this was one. The leaves came from low down & were long & straight-sided - bigger than those campanula leaves which come out of the stem all the way up.

Also, my impression of the flowers was that there were masses of them at the top of the plant, so not like a traditional spike.

Something with the species name "flavum" ("yellow") has to be a good bet

With the 'glaucum' for the blue-green foliage too!

Imagine this lobelia but on tall stems!

Excellent, I will look, photograph, chase a gardener and report back!

You can get upright lobelias https://www.google.com/search?q=blue%20perennial%20lobelia&udm=2&rlz=1C1CHBF_enGB1054GB1054&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQtI8BKAFqFwoTCPiAnvjD6oYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAH&biw=1920&bih=919&dpr=1#vhid=c4QsIpQ8s-d5fM&vssid=mosaic

I have only ever seen the red ones but apparently they come in blue as well.

I've had the red lobelia & it lasted for ages in a pot.

Many thanks for your help in this search!

This advert for seeds came up on your linked page (photo). What do we think?😬

Could it have been a salvia? One example below, there are lots which are blue or purple, as well as pink or red ones.

your lobelia photo made me think of it, the flower shapes are similar

https://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/salvia-guaranitica-black-and-blue/classid.2000012792/sku.RH30005596/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwps-zBhAiEiwALwsVYaNsb-GfdiltlBAjKvgdOJ3c8VWnrlhEYR8j_x9yo5QOlLXKzoj9yhoCtK8QAvD_BwE

@fernsandlilies Still too spiky, I think.

Yes but all Thalictrum have blue grey foliage to some extent In the wild I recognise them, when not in flower, by the leaves looking like Aquilegia but smaller. (You’re more likely to see a wild Thalictrum than a genuinely wild Aquilegia)

Lots of bright blue flowers, not so many with white centres

Well I had my sunglasses on & not my reading ones, so who knows what I was really looking at!

I'm hoping @MontyDonsBlueScarf will kindly have a poke about in the walled gardens & come up with an answer. There'd been a very nice gardener with a wheelbarrow in there earlier on, but when I tried to find her to ask what it was, she'd vanished. She must have shop assistant blood in her.😂

Thalictrum flavum subsp glauca....

Was it an Anchusa? I was at Mottisfont a couple of weeks ago and took pictures of two blue flowered plants there to identify them later.

https://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/anchusa-azurea-loddon-royalist/classid.2000013243/sku.RH30001382/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjKjK3bDrhgMVd4xQBh0bvQq_EAQYASABEgLSYfD_BwE

(It might not have been Loddon Royalist but that’s the variety I always remember)