LOVELY GRANNY’S BONNET
Aquilegias — also known as columbines or granny’s bonnets — are very giving plants, particularly now as their seed heads start to dry out and spill seeds into the garden. They cross readily so seed grown plants often produce lots of new colours. Often though the common blue form wins out in the genetic lottery.
I let aquilegias self seed and even spread these pretty spring-flowering plants into other parts of the garden.
Some gardeners regard them as a pest – almost but not quite up there with forget-menots. To limit the spread of aquilegias, cut off the dead flower heads as soon as flowering finishes and while the seed heads are still green. Once the pods turn from green to brown the tiny black seed is ready to scatter. Also keep an eye out for self-sown seedlings and weed them out of places where they are not wanted.
If your aquilegias have all reverted to just blue, inject new colours into the garden by buying and sowing seed or planting seedlings. Aquilegias are biennial so they take two years to reach flowering when grown from seed – this means seed sown now may not flower until next year.
Quiz answers 1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. Guitar 3. Li Na 4. 2004 5. Portuguese 6. France 7. The Sound of Music 8. Maryland 9. True 10. Erbium 11. England, New Zealand, South Africa 12. Cheese 13. New Zealand Warriors 14. Northern 15. Barry Du Bois 16. Volkswagen 17. Green 18. Dead Ringer Band 19. United Arab Emirates
20. Halloween 21. True 22. Botswana 23. Zhang Shuai 24. Yuri Gagarin 25. Audrey Hepburn 26. Telstra 27. United Arab Emirates 28. Fish 29. Two 30. Nikita Khrushchev.
Target Word answers: alit, astir, atrip, aurist, last, lati, lats, list, lust, lustra, part, past, patu, pistil, pita, pituri, plait, plat, purist, rapist, rapt, ritual, rust, salt, sati, silt, sitar, situla, slat, slit, spat, spilt, spirit, SPIRITUAL, spit, splat, split, sprat, sprit, spurt, sputa, stair, star, stir, strap, stria, strip, stupa, suit, sutra, tail, tali, talus, tapir, tarsi, taus, tipi, trail, trap, trial, trip, tsar, tulip, ultra.