{"id":2780,"date":"2019-07-08T06:52:05","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T14:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2780"},"modified":"2019-07-08T06:52:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T14:52:05","slug":"spotted-bellflower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/spotted-bellflower\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotted Bellflower"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Campanula<\/a>About five years ago I bought an alluring plant from a roadside stand in the Finger Lakes region of Central New York State.\u00a0 The \u201cstand\u201d was actually a large cart, laden with perennials that were clearly surplus specimens from someone\u2019s well-stocked garden.\u00a0 The \u201csomeone\u201d was nowhere to be seen. \u00a0Among the offerings were gaillardia daisies, Shastas, catmint, and my choice, which was simply labeled \u201cbellflower\u201d.\u00a0 The single nodding \u201cbell\u201d that adorned my plant was about two inches long and dusty pink, with a narrow, lighter pink rim on the edge.\u00a0\u00a0 The price was two dollars, which I deposited in the honor box at the end of the cart, before moving on.\u00a0 When I arrived back at our summer cottage, I planted my bellflower in a little bed that surrounds a large cottonwood stump.<\/p>\n

For all but about three weeks a year, my summer cottage garden is neglected.\u00a0 Any plant that survives\u2014and many do\u2014must make do on its own.\u00a0 The soil ranges from heavy clay at the top of the embankment that bounds our driveway, to shale beach by our dock.\u00a0 The tree stump bed is somewhere in between those two extremes.\u00a0 When I planted the bellflower, it joined several hostas, a couple of Asiatic lilies, some stalwart columbines, several healthy bearded iris, a few ajuga or bugleweed plants, and a \u201cmourning widow\u201d hardy geranium. The bellflower went in the sunnier half of the bed.<\/p>\n

For some reason, I didn\u2019t do any research on the new acquisition after I planted it.\u00a0 By the time I returned to our cottage the following spring, it had morphed into three plants. By summer those plants had sprouted a bevy of long, ridged buds and additional pink bells.\u00a0 Clearly the bellflowers were thriving without help in the deer-populated, USDA Zone 5 climate. \u00a0That alone was worthy of further investigation.<\/p>\n

Now I know the proper Latin name of those bellflowers, Campanula punctata, or even more formally, Campanula punctata f. rubriflora.\u00a0 This is loosely translated as \u201cspotted bellflower with pink blossoms\u201d.\u00a0 The plant\u2019s admirers just call it \u201cspotted bellflower\u201d, or sometimes, \u201clong-flowered bellflower\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0The species is part of the very large Campanulaceae or harebell family, which includes about 2400 species, growing on every continent except Antarctica.\u00a0 Spotted bellflowers hail from Japan and Siberia, and most likely arrived here in the eighteenth or possibly nineteenth century.\u00a0 The plants grow one to two feet tall, rising from mats of toothed foliage.\u00a0 Ridged, capsule-shaped buds open into pendant, lantern-like flowers that may be up to three inches long.\u00a0 Each blossom is also broadly toothed at the bottom.\u00a0 Because the flowers hang from the stems, it takes effort to look inside them.\u00a0 If you do, you will see the purple spots that gave rise to both Latin and common names.\u00a0\"Campanula<\/a><\/p>\n

Because of their vigor, I suspect that spotted bellflowers have long been popular \u201cpass along\u201d plants\u2014the kind that you acquire from avid gardening friends, or the occasional roadside stand.\u00a0 I suspect that my plant is probably \u2018Cherry Bells\u2019, which seems to be the most readily available in horticultural commerce.\u00a0 Breeders have not latched on to Campanula punctata as they have with some other species, so you will not find scores of spotted bellflower varieties on the market.\u00a0 The Chicago Botanical Garden did a large-scale campanula evaluation in 2008 and listed nine different forms and varieties.\u00a0 Those with flowers in shades of dark pink and pink-purple predominate, including \u2018Cherry Bells\u2019, \u2018Bowl of Cherries\u2019 and \u2018Vienna Festival\u2019.\u00a0 \u2018Alina\u2019s Double\u2019 is in the same color range, but with double bells, configured one inside the other in an arrangement that an older generation of English and American gardeners would call \u201chose in hose\u201d.\u00a0 White Campanula punctata f. albiflora has also given rise to a cultivated variety called \u2018Wedding Bells\u2019.\u00a0 All the forms and varieties are characterized as \u201cspreading\u201d, so I know my bellflowers are typical of their species.<\/p>\n

Since my spotted bellflowers are bent on moving towards world domination, I am going to separate a clump and take it back to my home garden.\u00a0 I will take great pleasure in them, since they hold up well in the garden and in cut flower arrangements.\u00a0 Deer allegedly do not like them.\u00a0 I will also make sure that I work to curb their rampant expansionistic tendencies.<\/p>\n

You may not have a roadside stand nearby, but if you want \u2018Cherry Bells\u2019 to fill those blank spaces in the garden, you can get it from Digging Dog Nursery, 31101 Middle Ridge Road, Albion, CA 95410; (707) 937-1130; www.diggingdog.com<\/a>.\u00a0 It appears to be harder to lay hands on other varieties, unless of course you live in horticultural paradises like the U.K., Australia and Canada.\u00a0 \u2018Nana Alba\u2019, a white-flowered variety, is available from Far Reaches Farm, 1818 Hastings Avenue, Port Townsend, WA 98369; (360) 385-5141; www.farreachesfarm.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About five years ago I bought an alluring plant from a roadside stand in the Finger Lakes region of Central New York State.\u00a0 The \u201cstand\u201d was actually a large cart, laden with perennials that were clearly surplus specimens from someone\u2019s well-stocked garden.\u00a0 The \u201csomeone\u201d was nowhere to be seen. \u00a0Among the offerings were gaillardia daisies, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2131,2132,1449,2133,257,2134,2025],"class_list":["post-2780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-bellflower","tag-campanula-punctata","tag-campanulaceae","tag-cherry-bells","tag-deer-resistant-plants","tag-spotted-bellflower","tag-sun-perennials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2783,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780\/revisions\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}