Electric Blue Confusion

I got some delphinium plants on a whim in spring -- just a few plants to plop in an empty spot at the back of the shady east side garden, and they have been spectacular.

Beverly, who lives up the hill and around the corner says she can see their bright blue flowers from her living room window, and she's some distance away. They really pop.

They have bloomed non-stop, soldiering on through an awful heat wave, and standing tall, unstaked, for weeks and weeks.

Of course I want them again next year. These are perennial delphiniums (grandiflorum) which will come back each year and are sometimes called annual larkspur.

Electric blue flowers on tall stems are either delphiniums or larkspurs. These were sold with a tag "Delphinium" but they are not Delphinium elatum. They look like larkspurs (Consolida ajacis), which is an annual. But which are they -- perennial or annual?

Delphiniums are perennials that many people consider annuals because they can't get them to overwinter and they don't come back each year. Larkspurs actually are annuals that people think are perennials because they re-seed easily, and new ones come up each spring from the seeds that drop. No one even tries to keep this distinction straight; not nurseries, not google, not plant tags. 

The common name for true delphiniums is larkspur. The common name for annual larkspurs seems to be delphinium. Got it? I blame the British.

One nursery covers all the bases and sells "Delphinium Rocket Larkspur" as a "long lived annual", and the delphinium grandiflorum that I planted is noted as a "short lived perennial". Very mixed messages.

But, electric blue. 

 Electric blue!  All is forgiven if I can have more larkspurs / delphiniums / confused blue flowers next year in my shady garden.