Description

Aquilegia – Columbine

There are around 70 species of graceful clump forming perennials, in this genus.  They occur from meadows, open woodlands, and mountainous areas in Europe, North America, and temperate regions of Asia.  Columbine comes from the Latin word for dove, as the flowers were thought to resemble a cluster of doves.  They produce basal rosettes of long stalked deeply 3-lobed or ternate to 3 ternate often blue-green or blue-gray fern like leaves the leaflets are mostly egg shape or rounded wedge shaped at the bases often shallowly or deeply divided into 2 or 3 lobes.  In late spring and early summer distinctively spurred bell shaped flowers usually 1-4” long with colorful tepals and spurred petals are carried singly or in short panicles on branching leafy stems. These frost hardy plants prefer moist but well-drained light soil enriched with manure in full sun or partial shade.  Grow alpine species in gritty, humus-rich, and moist but sharply drained soil in full sun.   Protect from strong winds and in hot areas provide some shade. Contact with sap may irritate skin.  Some used as cut flowers or in rock gardens. Prone to powdery mildew, rust in dry summers, fungal leaf spots, Ascochyta and Septoria, Southern blight, aphids, leaf miners, and damage from caterpillars. Aquilegia vulgaris – Granny’s Bonnet – This upright perennial from Europe grows 36” tall and spreads to 18” or more wide.  This species is the parent of many Hybrids.  It produces mid gray green leaves with blue-green undersides are divided into lobed leaflets ½-1 ½” long.  In late spring and early summer it bears many branched stiff stems that carry terminal leafy racemes of 5-15 nodding to horizontal flowers with short hooked spurs to ¾” long in colors ranging from deep violet and blue to pink and in white.  Several double flowered are also cultivated. Zones 3-9