Aquilegia

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Regular readers will know that the emphasis in my garden is on vegetables rather than flowers, but I do still have at least some flowers and shrubs. I am currently enthused by the Aquilegia (aka Columbine).

Last year I grew some Aquilegias from seeds sent to me by the ever-generous Diana of Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls. I sowed the seeds too late in the year for the plants to flower, (you can read about it HERE), but I am hopeful that this year I will get some blooms. I am particularly looking forward to this because I still don’t know what type / colour they will be.

The six little plants that I had potted up had died right down, and were looking decidedly scruffy, but nevertheless they have successfully survived the Winter and are just putting up their first new leaves.

Seems like the right time to give them a little TLC…

I tidied them up, removing all the leaf-stalks from last year along with all the accumulated pine-needles, birch leaves etc, and then re-potted them. Growing them in pots means I will be able to move them around the garden at will, whereas in the past my Aquilegias (until now only self-seeded volunteers) usually grow in a very unlikely place – alongside the fence between my back door and the compost bin!

So three of them have gone imto individual terracotta pots:

And the other three have gone into one much larger glazed pot:

Now I hope I won’t regret this. I have no idea what colour(s) the flowers of these plants are going to be, and I suppose it is entirely possible that they will clash horribly with the red and brown of this pot, but I’m taking a chance on it.

As well as the six plants grown from seed, I also potted-up a plant that I brought back from my MIL’s garden last year:

At least I know what the flowers of this one will be like, because I took some photos of it in MIL’s garden:

This year I am growing another batch of Aquilegia from seed. The seeds were sent to me by David Ford of Wellcome Allotments, another blogging / Facebook friend. David is not only an avid gardener, but also a very accomplished photographer, so of course he had the foresight to send me a photo showing me what to expect!

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