GARDENS Sing diary the blues
For elegance, grace and impact in the garden this summer, fill up with brilliant blue bellflowers, agapanthus and trusty geraniums
SO, the summer solstice is upon us – the longest daylight hours of the year. Hopefully we’ll enjoy good weather and the prospect of spending more evenings out in the garden.
The light at such times is particularly enchanting and the colour that most comes into its own at this time is blue.
Reds and oranges fade into obscurity in such light and even yellow loses its brilliance. White flowers are lovely but blue truly glows.
Fortunately for us, many blueflowered favourites start their performance now. In the forefront are campanulas and geraniums.
Campanulas, or bellflowers as they are popularly known, are an extensive and varied family, including daisy alpines and 6ft giants.
One of the most useful even in a small garden is the giant Campanula lactiflora. Its branching stems are adorned with hundreds of starry flowers. It’s called the milky bellflower because the blue of its flowers seem tinged with white. In its white form, the flowers are washed in blue.
Although it starts its performance as June turns to July, it goes on to the end of summer, especially when its apical growth is trimmed back to allow its laterals to flower. It is happy in any fertile soil and grows very well in shade. There are shorter varieties – one is called ‘Pouffe’ but it lacks the elegance of taller varieties.
Campanula persicifolia, the peach-leaved bellflower, has long been a favourite at Glebe Cottage.
It’s a versatile plant – evergreen, with many different cultivars, most of them blue. Straight vertical stems carry large bells. Some varieties have double flowers.
They are very female flowers. When I used to run a nursery, they were always a favourite with the ladies.
Campanula latiloba and Campanula latifolia have a similar stature. The latter is a British native and is often to be found in shady hedgerows, especially in the North East. If you have a rock garden or a dry stone wall, then campanula cochlearifolia, the rockery campanula, is ideal – especially if you will be looking at them in the evening.
The famous gardener Margery Fish said: “If in doubt, plant a geranium”, and they are among the easiest and most straightforward plants to grow, especially if you want a naturalistic look.
In the garden here at Glebe Cottage, Geranium pratense, our native cranesbill, is in complete control during June and July. It seeds itself around randomly and I wouldn’t be without it. There are double forms too, whose flowers last longer but they lack the grace of the native plant.
Geranium himalayense and ‘Brookside’ are stalwart blue flower species of medium height and immensely useful for edging beds.
All these cranesbills look just the ticket alongside agapanthus. Mine are in bud now. Because their flowers are borne on tall stems, they are perfect subjects to rise gracefully from clumps of lower plants, such as some of the geraniums I’ve just mentioned.
South African in origin, some need greenhouse protection in winter – they’re usually evergreen. The narrow-leaved herbaceous varieties survive happily outdoors and build into big clumps. Headbourne hybrids were traditionally the go-to cultivars but new varieties hit the market every year. If you want to grow large-flowered evergreen varieties, plant them in a large pot or container but don’t overpot. They seem to flower better when their
Versatile – Campanula persicfolia roots are restricted.
Agapanthus take over from aquilegias, which are at the peak of flowering now. These columbines or granny’s bonnets are archetype cottage garden flowers. Most are forms of the common aquilegia, Aquilegia vulgaris – a European species.
They seed about prolifically with total disregard for the established order. They are the most promiscuous of plants – true anarchists.
The best is ‘Hensol Harebell’, with broad petals and long spurs. We have a special hybrid with this as one of its parents, the other being semi-aquilegia elcalcerata. It is a refined little plant, with its blue trumpets edged in silver.