Re: columbine
- Subject: Re: [SG] columbine
- From: L* K*
- Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 06:10:20 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: Lynn Barbee <msgardens@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <shadegardens@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 5:31 AM
Subject: [SG] columbine
> Bobbi's dark violet columbines sound beautiful, but I have
shied away from
> columbine, since a friend of mine says hers reseed everywhere
in different
> colors from what she started with. As I write this, I have to
ask myself, so
> what? I guess that reseeding shouldn't sound like a bad thing,
but if I
> wanted dark violet, or the lovely mauve that I saw at my
friend's house, I
> wouldn't want other colors in that spot. I like to combine
colors, and want
> them to stay put. Is she right? Lynn
>
Everybody has their own goals for a garden. I don't worry somuch
about
volunteers because I'm lazy and sometimes volunteers create
little beds and
drifts without me doing any work. And if I like a flower I
usually like its whole
range so I don't mind about that.
But my experience with columbine in my yard is that it is not
easy to get it
to naturalize. This is a pity for me because I love it. I had
given up on
it because I had thought it was a perennial with a reasonable
length
of life, but the folks at the UCSC Arboretum and Native Plants
Society
told me it was a very short-lived plant, almost an annual, so I
started
thinking of it differently. If I could get it to reseed in
drifts, whatever
color, so long as it had the graceful, small-flowered, spurred
form,
I'd be delighted.
Lucy Kemnitzer
