Campanulas
Campanulas, also known as bellflowers, were one of my early plan passions, writes Lynda Hallinan
Lynda Hallinan explains how Victorian bellflowers won her heart.
First loves: there’s usually a good reason why they don’t last. That heady infatuation with anything new – a fancy frock, a spunky fella, a popstar or a fashionable plant – generally wears off when you get used to seeing it around every day. In the garden, this same sense of familiarity doesn’t necessarily breed contempt, but it can make us forget about old-fashioned, easy-care plants in favour of eyecatching modern hybrids that die if you so much as dare to look at them affectionately.
Changing lifestyles (apparently we’re all getting lazier), and seasonal horticultural and floristry fashions definitely have an impact on a plant’s popularity, but that doesn’t explain why some glorious garden beauties fall off the radar for no reason at all.
Campanulas are known collectively as bellflowers. This common name is mirrored by their botanical moniker , as campanula translates to mean "little bells" in Latin.
When I started my first “proper” garden (behind a one-bedroom flat owned 99 per cent by the bank), it was during the cottage craze of the early 1990s. Although I loved all pretty pastel flowers back then, I had a particular fetish for blue bloomers.
When my love for alpine gentians proved unrequited in Auckland’s humid climate, anagallis filled the gap. This half-hardy annual looks like a forget-me-not on steroids. (Seeds of Anagallis ‘Gentian Blue’, aka the blue pimpernel, are available from Egmont Seeds.)
I sowed loads of blue annuals, from cornflowers to larkspurs, lobelias and love-in-the-mist, and Echium ‘Blue Bedder’ proved to be a prolific and bee-friendly self-seeder.
As for blue-flowered perennials? Cottage gardeners are spoiled for choice. I salivated over Salvia patens, ‘Butterfly Blue’ pincushion scabiosas, the cranesbill geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ (superseded in more recent times by the more floriferous and larger-flowering ‘Rozanne’), balloon flowers ( Platycodon grandiflorus), easycare Felicia amelloides daisies and the blue-eyed grass Sisyrinchium ‘Devon Skies’, all of which remain firm favourites of mine to this day.
I also amassed a decent collection of campanulas, mostly sourced from the Small Acorns classifieds at the back of NZ Gardener. I fell for cascading blue Serbian bellflowers ( Campanula poscharskyana), creeping but compact Dalmatian bellflowers ( Campanula portenschlagiana) and the clustered bellflower Campanula glomerata, with low-growing bristly foliage topped with tightly packed pompoms of blue, white and purple on sturdy stems.
To give credit where credit is due, those campanulas helped me land a junior job as editorial assistant at NZ Gardener all those years ago, because when then-editor Pamela McGeorge visited my little cottage garden one spring, I enthusiastically namechecked them all like a bona fide plant geek.
But the reason I mention this is because, in the years since, we’ve never given campanulas the kudos they deserve by publishing a feature on them – so here it is.
There are hundreds of species of campanulas with flowers that range in form from petite singles to frilly doubles. Fragrance is not their forté but, depending on the cultivar, their flower colours cover the gamut from pale lilac to deep purple, delicate to dark pink, white and all shades of blue.
Some varieties, though not exactly household names, are easily sourced from garden centres, including the award-winning ‘Mystic Bells’ – named as one of the New Zealand garden industry’s Stars of Spring 15 years ago and still featuring in the Living Fashion range. ‘Mystic Bells’ is a showoff by campanula standards, with comparatively large, vibrant blue bells on a compact plant to about 40cm high.
Campanulas will grow in sun or part-shade, in dry or damp soil, and range in height from groundhugging alpines to back of the border beauties such as Campanula lactiflora ‘Loddon Anna’, which has phlox-like spires up to 1.2m high.
Kate Jury, who specialises in rare perennials at Seaflowers Nursery in Whanganui (seaflowersnursery.co.nz), is a campanula fan. “For height, I love Campanula lactiflora in both pale lilac shades and darker lilac-blue. Fabulous for flower power, it blends with other taller perennials and grasses and is easy to grow. You just whack a spade through it to propagate.”
There's a colour known as campanula blue that's described by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as" a light purplish blue that is redder and deeper than lupine and bluer and slightly darker than periwinkle."
Campanula rotundifolia ‘Alba’ is a sweet shortie: “It winds itself around other plants in the garden but not in a nuisance sort of way. I love the airy effect of the masses of little white bells on wiry stems,” says Kate.
Campanulas are best propagated by division in autumn or spring. You can try to patiently raise them from seed, but be aware that it’s a fiddly job.
“You need to be super patient as the seeds, and seedlings, are pinprick tiny,” says Nelson writer and nursery owner Philippa Foes-Lamb, who has one of the best mail order selections at heirloomplantnursery.co.nz.
Kings Seeds list the peachleaf variety Campanula persicifolia ‘Blue Bell’, said to be excellent for cutting. They advise pre-chilling seeds for 14 days prior to sowing to assist germination. Scatter the seeds over the surface of trays of seed-raising mix then only lightly cover with a sprinkle of mix.
Egmont Seeds have the quirky form of Campanula medium known as ‘Cup and Saucer’. These Canterbury bells have a distinctive shape – literally a saucer under a cupped bell. Sow in autumn to flower the following spring.
Egmont Seeds also sell Campanula carpatica ‘Rapido Blue’, an F1 hybrid whose name reveals its character. It’s a fast-to-flower perennial variety that blooms in its first year from seed.
In its 2019 seed list (nzags.com/ seed-list), the NZ Alpine Garden Society includes several itty-bitty campanulas, such as endangered Campanula autraniana, Campanula carpatica ‘Betty Mae’, and whiteflowered Campanula carpatica f. alba.
Join the society and you could be lucky enough to germinate seeds of Campanula persicifolia ‘Chettle Charm’, an exquisite peachleaf bellflower with outward facing, star-shaped white flowers that look as if their edges have been dipped in denim dye, or the icy-blue Greek bellflower, Campanula incurva. This species has large goblets quite out of proportion to its leaves but also, frustratingly, a monocarpic habit of popping its clogs after flowering.
Some of the cutest campanulas are also the smallest. These alpine species need free-draining tufa pots or the comfort of rockery crevices to flourish.
Whether you think of campanulas as easy and amenable, or aggresive and invasive, depends on how much you love them - and how much love you lavish upon them.
In the Victorian Langugage of Flowers, white campanulas symbolised gratitude whereas blue harebells represented grief. Fairies were said to sleep inside thier dainty bells.
If you fancy a challenge, try sowing Campanula raineri, from the Swiss and Italian Alps, with mini pale lilac-blue bells, or the wee seeds of Campanula petrophila, which hails from the Caucasus and grows naturally in rock crevices up to an altitude of 3600m. Even the global experts at the UK’s Alpine Garden Society admit that it’s “not easy to please, best in a scree or dry wall with protection from slugs.”
In average garden soil, campanulas are hardy and disease-resistant. But when conditions aren’t to their liking – too wet or too dry – they’ll die out.
Five years ago, the Chicago Botanic Garden reported on a 20-year trial of around 120 campanulas. A third of the varieties were disqualified during the trial (they died), suggesting that if campanulas don’t get off to a good start in spring and summer, they won’t make it through to their second year. “Plants were weak, declined steadily over the first summer and died the first winter,” was the most common verdict in the Chicago Botanic Gardens’ coronial inquests, with crown dieback or root rot taking their toll on many modern hybrids.
Some species, such as Campanula garganica, might have made the cut had they not been choked out by more vigorous relatives such as Campanula punctata. But on the whole, the best varieties for flowering performance and longevity were C. rapunculoides, C. rotundifolia, C. poscharskyana and cultivars of Campanula glomerata.
At Joy Plants in Pukekohe, Terry Hatch thinks campanulas are better suited to the mainland. “The further south you go, the easier things like harebells ( Campanula rotundifolia) are to grow. Many species are alpines and they like a cold, crisp climate.”
In his own garden, Terry grows Campanula ‘Burghaltii’, an unusual variety in keeping with the current fashion for flesh-pink and bleached peach flowers, such as the sellout dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’ or ‘King Size Apricot’ asters. ‘Burghaltii’ is thought to be a cross between Campanula latifolia and Campanula punctata, and has pale grey petals with foxglovelike spots up its throat.
When English celebrity gardener Carol Klein wrote about “the best bellflowers” for The Telegraph a few years ago, she said of ‘Burghaltii’: “Grey is a colour seldom seen in flowers. While it may sound dirty, it is often a glorious addition to a humdrum scheme, bringing a touch of class to the proceedings. ‘Burghaltii’ is graceful, elegant and – despite its subtle demeanour – always noticed.”
Tall varieties . flower from the bottom of the stem up. Deadhead the old spires when the last petals have withered to encourage a fresh flush. Many will repeat bloom until winter.
Easier to find in New Zealand, and certainly much easier to grow, is Campanula takesimana, the Korean bellflower, with pale cream bells that are flushed with pink and sport distinctive burgundy freckles inside.
With impressive bells streaked with raspberry-pink, ‘Elizabeth’ is probably the most commonly grown cultivar, though not everyone appreciates the enthusiasm shown by the Queen of campanulas. “Fast-spreading,” is how Debbie Sisam politely describes its habit at Puriri Lane Nursery and Garden in Drury.
Debbie has corralled ‘Elizabeth’ into a corner where she can do no harm, wedged into a lime, orange and burgundy border of angelica, leonotis, clivias and plum-coloured Calycanthus ‘Hartlage Wine’.
Friend or foe: it’s all a matter of perspective isn’t it? In my Hunua garden, I’ve been encouraging ‘Elizabeth’ to spread in a problem spot with poor drainage under a field maple by our lawn. Hellebores and ajuga all sulk there, so I’m happy to let colonising campanulas, Fuchsia procumbens and hedge woundwort, Stachys sylvatica, battle it out together.
Old-timers with thuggish tendencies should be celebrated, jokes Philippa Foes-Lamb. “Gardeners tend to be scared of thugs but they have their uses. If you’re worried about them spreading, plant them in a spot where they have to struggle a bit. Campanula takesimana is brilliant under trees in dry shady areas. Also, campanulas don’t like being mollycoddled. The poorer the soil, the more they flower,” she adds.
The fact that many campanulas, especially the meadow harebells, look quite dainty but are actually gutsy is a key part of their appeal for Philippa. “I love that they are delicate but strong at the same time.”
Did you know there’s even an edible species of campanula? Well known to European foragers, rampion ( Campanula rapunculus) – not to be confused with rampion bellflower Campanula rapunculoides – is a biennial with white roots that look like slender parsnips or radishes. The roots can be eaten raw or cooked and are said to have a sweet, nutty flavour similar to fresh walnuts. The leaves can also be steamed or eaten as baby salad greens and, like hostas and hops, the emerging spring shoots can be harvested as you would asparagus.
According to online resource Wikipedia, rampion also inspired the name of the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale Rapunzel, as this was the plant’s old Germanic nickname. ✤