FLOWER TOWER!

Aquilegia’s stunning clusters of colour atop elegant 3ft stems will give any border a lift

IHAVE just planted out half a dozen healthy specimens of Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Ruby Port’ into our Jewel Garden. These have, as the name suggests, a rich plum-coloured flower, multi-petalled with yellow stamens. They manage to pull off that rare trick of being sumptuous and charming at the same time.

Aquilegias — or granny’s bonnets— also carry an aura of wholesomeness about them. Certainly, they are one of those plants we grow as much for the way they make us and our gardens feel more tranquil and softly rural as for their prettiness.

All aquilegias are easy to grow, seeding themselves everywhere, and, being a herbaceous perennial, they come back year after year without any attention or horticultural care needed.

They are almost invariably used at this time of year as border plants — often put near the front, where they soon outgrow their position, reaching fully 3ft (90cm) and towering over their neighbours.

Their height is not the result of boisterous growth, but rather the exceptionally elegant and slender stems that carry the flowers. But they are naturally happier in the half shade of woodland edge or shaded grassland, which in normal garden terms translates to the lee of a shrub or the middle of a border.

Common aquilegias are unfussy about soil but perhaps should be used for their ability to grow perfectly happily in poorish conditions and their ability to enliven dry shade. I find in this garden that they are best in a spot that gets sunshine for the first few hours in the morning and then is shaded by thickening foliage for the rest of the day. Direct sunlight and heat stunt its growth and singe the delicate leaves, which is a waste as the leaves stay a good colour throughout the season, turning from a delicate glaucous to gain a violet tinge.

Aquilegia leaves start appearing as disparate loose whirls like rosettes of soft artichokes before spreading into unified, soft scallops in groups of three, from which the flower stems rise above. They have the habit of holding drops of rain after most other plants have shed them, and the combination of the blue-green leaves tinged with violet and the clear crystals of water is enchanting. When the flowers are finished —around the end of June — cut the stalks off and let the leaves do their stuff without the distraction of drying spikes of stem.

I see aquilegias as a semi-wild plant, best enjoyed for their indiscriminate appearance where you least expect them and their ability to produce endless variations by hybridising so freely. But careful selection of named hybrids gives a wide range of colours and it is perfectly possible to use and manipulate them with care and precision.

There are about 70 species, some of which are alpines, such as A. bertolonii and A. scopulorum, which are dwarf varieties that like scree or rock crevices. Most are scentless — A. fragrans is an exception. A. alpina is a true and lovely blue, A. chrysantha has pure yellow flowers, rather less drooping than some, and ‘Yellow Queen’ is a very tall cultivar. A. vulgaris ‘Nivea’ is pure white.

Although aquilegias are herbaceous perennials, during a mild winter the leaves linger until Christmas time, and new growth tentatively begins soon afterwards, with seedlings popping up all over the place. Long may they do so.