I was just watching an eye-candy (and ear-candy too, if you like old, sentimental music, which I do)
of a movie,
Delovely, about Cole Porter, his long-suffering wife, Linda, and, of course, his wonderful
music. There is a scene in the movie with the
loveliest bouquet combination (okay, it was a casket spray in a funeral scene, but still....) of white Casablanca lilies, various fern, and yes, purple Canterbury bells.
Just like these
These beautiful purple bells (I just can't let that purple thing go....) are a biennial, and took a couple of
years to mature into these lovely blooms. They make delightful cut flowers, ever so fresh looking with
white and shades of green in the vase, but feminine and delicate with pink and pale yellow. Well, the scent of these beauties, along with those heady-scented lilies is quite simply, delicious.
A much richer, deeper hue of purple is displayed by
the perennial campanula. Though its wonderful little
bells look down
its prospects in heavy soil look up. I am always surprised at how well it
performs in our Oklahoma red clay. And I ADORE the way the little buds look just like tiny hanging
eggplant. Makes me smile just to look at them.
Blooming at the same time, creating the most beautiful echo of purple and lavender around the
garden, are the deliriously rampant, self-seeding (but in a good way), purple columbine. This
wonderful strain (that I can't specifically identify)
came home with me from a Munich beer garden. There are very few plants that I allow to
behave with so little discipline. But despite the inevitable leaf-miners that come later in the
season, I just can't reign in these little lovelies, and I usually let them self-seed with abandon.
A little later, the tiny bellflower look-alike, adenophora, keeping company here with the variegated creaminess of Solomon's Seal, appears
at about the same time as the also-reliable self-seeding larkspur (that as far as I'm concerned, go to
seed a little too fast). Sometimes I feel like I'm cleaning up after them, before I've had enough time
to enjoy their company. Ah well......
Delightful, de-lovely, delicious gardens don't ever last as long as we'd like.... just like good movies I
guess.
These beautiful purple bells (I just can't let that purple thing go....) are a biennial, and took a couple of
