One of my favourite perennials when I first started gardening more than 20 years ago. More and more new varieties are becoming available in the market since then. The problem with growing aquilegia is they self-sown wildly and effectively become messy weeds making maintenance of a neat perennial bed almost impossible. (I often treat them as 'free filler plants'.) They also cross pollinate easily between various types, and rapidly degenerate into the most common purple colour columbine. For a very small garden, dead heading can be a solution.
Since we still like aquilegia, I adopted an approach in the last few years to bring them under control (still trying). I allowed a specific type and colour to self sow in their designated beds, and weed out any deviations and and excess, and deligently weed out all seedlings in the beds where I do not intend to have them. For the plants that are allowed to stay, I cut most of them down to ground level after major flowering period (if I have the time), keeping only a few stalks to self sow. It may not be a perfect or even a lasting solution, but it at least allows me to have a few varieties of aquilegia around without their weed seedlings annoying me too much. At least, I hope this can slow down the degeneration.
This is a wild flower native to Ontario. I found one plant by the ditch at our cottage, and collected a few seeds. Now, I am starting to develop a small patch of it in my garden at home from these seeds...
These 'Little Lantern' were sown from seeds a few years ago. Only one patch is left, and I am not sure how pure it is. It seems hard to differentiate it from the native one except it may have a more profuse flowering habit.
These 'Corbett' were sown from seeds, and this is their first year bloom.
Most of the aquilegia in my garden are derivatives of the vulgaris type.
I managed to keep a reasonable 'sustained' patch of 'Black Barlow'; need to weed out the deviations quickly...
I may have lost my 'Ruby Port'; need to look for it next spring...
Some new aquilegia from seeds, but I lost their identities....
Only two thing are infinite; the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure of the former.
Albert Einstein
