Columbines

Colorful Curious Columbines!

Colorful, whimsical jester hats, the curious Columbine is a gorgeous spring addition to the landscape! Members of the Buttercup family, and also known as known as Granny's Bonnet, these lovely perennials rarely get too large or cumbersome!

These delicate-looking plants are actually hardy native wildflowers found rambling throughout the Northern Hemisphere!

The Columbine is known for its five-sectioned spur-petalled flowers surrounding a central, cup-shaped corolla. Often two-tone and look like Fairy hats! The backs of each curled horn-shaped petal have a cute backward-extending spur that makes them irresistible to kids! The flower's stamens are attractive, and their centers sometimes take on a honeycomb look.

Nature Hills offers a wide variety of these adorable blossoms in single and double forms, in reds to wine, pinks to purple, blues, lavenders, yellow, and bi-colors! Columbine's lovely flowers appear in late spring to early summer.

Each spring, the rounded, deeply lobed, notched, and delicate compound leaves are in both soft-green and blue-green hues. Emerging from a basal rosette and becoming lush green clumps that are quickly followed by the unique blooms!

Easy-Care Columbines

Doing best in sunny areas that have some relief from the worst of the afternoon sun, Columbines also handle partial shade wonderfully! Provide a well-drained, moist, and organically-rich site and a 3-4 inch layer of mulch around the outskirts of their rosette to keep the roots cool and leaves clean from mud splashing on them from rain.

Water new plants regularly, as well as plants in hotter climates. They can die back in the summer when the going gets tough and wait for cooler days. But once established, Columbines can be rather drought-tolerant.

If you deadhead the blooms as soon as they fade, you may enjoy some rebloom a bit later in the season too! If you don't mind, let them self-seed and naturalize. (Please note that the seedlings may not exhibit the same flower color or traits as their parents).

In the late autumn, or sometimes in the heat and drought of the summer months, Columbines are herbaceous perennials that will go dormant and die back to the ground, and in cooler climates, they die back in the fall. Snip off and remove the leaves and spent stems.

Columbines are seldom eaten by Deer or rabbits, rarely bothered by any pests or diseases, and only fall victim to powdery mildew when overcrowded or in locations that don't receive adequate air circulation or morning sunlight.

Landscaping With Columbines

Snip the flowers for bouquets and floral arrangements, or leave them to the pollinators and bees that will have to acrobatically dangle from each bloom to reach the nectar! The red-hued varieties even attract Hummingbirds!

Every Cutting Garden, mixed perennial garden, Cottage border, and Children's garden needs a few of these unique little, cold-hardy flowering plants throughout USDA growing zones 3 or 4 through zones 7-9! Even your protected container gardens gain lacy seasonal accents, or annual specimens and filler in all growing zones!

Great for naturalizing en masse and as edging along the front of the garden border, the lacy foliage is just the finishing touch that eases the transition between lawn and landscaping bed!

Let ramble through the dappled shade of woodland gardens, as a lacy skirting around larger trees and shrubs, or create bunches and groupings of Columbines as middle-of-the-border focal points!

Find Elegant Whimsical Spring Perennials at Nature Hills!

Columbines are one of my favorite spring mainstays, and once you take a closer look at these beauties, you'll be hooked, too!

Find these and many more garden delights at Nature Hills and get your garden whimsy delivered to your doorstep!