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Aquilegia

Thursday, February 21, 2013 9:33
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Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”

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).

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Photo from 2011

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.

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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!

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So three of them have gone imto individual terracotta pots:

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

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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:

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

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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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Isn’t that a beauty? Neither of us know its official name, but in my garden it will be known as Aquilegia “David Ford”!  there’s a long way to go yet before I get any flowers, but these tiny seedlings are looking good so far…
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To read more articles like this, on Gardening and Gastronomy, please visit * http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/ *



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