I love Aquilegia as anyone who reads this blog will know and particularly the ones with long spurs. I have a new love – Aquilegia canadensis. It is a real firecracker in the border singing out across the garden. To be honest, being somewhat forgetful, I wondered what the small orange and yellow flowers shouting out from the gravel border were. I remembered that I had grown them from seed last year, maybe the year before and I think the seeds came from Special Plants.
I love the two tones of colour so pretty and the long anthers. A most elegant plant. I have taken lots of photos to add to my library ready for potential botanical paintings.
Aquilegia canadensis is a North American variety and I think I am right in saying that those with long spurs are generally from the US. It originates from the rocky areas and therefore will perform well in a rock garden or similar environment. Interestingly my research has shown that this plant has a number of other names which I think it unusual for a specific variety of Aquilegia:- Rock Bells, Turk’s cap and Cluckies which is really strange.
The other thing that struck me about this Aquilegia are the leaves which have much more defined lobed leaves than my other Aquilegia. In fact it reminded me of a recent conversation on twitter where someone was trying to identify a plant and questioned if it was an Aquilegia despite the Aquilegia flowers as the leaves were different. It just shows that we don’t necessarily look at the leaves enough but at the end of the day when you id a plant it is the flower you start with and the leaves come second.
I think this is a wonderful flower and should be grown by more people.
