Re: campanulas for shade

I've been experimenting with campunula species a lot this year and I'm also
a great fan of campanula in the shade.

I love the wacky C. takesima (Pamela's Dr Seuss plant) and it bloomed
beautifully in full shade. Then the slugs/snails found it and decimated it
within about 3 days (sigh. the price of gardening in northern california). I
haven't had a slug problem with any other campanula, but I'm not sure if the
plant is a gourmet slug treat or if I just planted it in a particularly
slug-friendly spot. The other plants in that spot are ferns and oxalis, so
anything probably looks good to a slug compared with them. ;-)

I've also always had excellent luck with the groundcover C. poscharskyana
(sp?).

With just a few hours of morning sun, I had really good luck this year with
C. persicifolia 'George Chiswell'. It's a lovely flower, with medium-size,
outward-facing cups that are white with a blue/purple rim. It's about 12-18"
tall and very long-blooming.

C. rotundifolia also bloomed like crazy with just dappled morning sun in my
garden.

C. latiloba is the only one I had any trouble with in shade this year (slugs
aside). It's planted where it gets a few hours of dappled morning sun. It
looks healthy, but it didn't bloom. It arrived looking the same size and
from the same mail order nursery as 'George Chiswell' (I forget which one)
and I planted them about 6 feet apart, so I can only conjecture that it
wanted a little more sun than it got. If anybody has any advice with this
plant, I'd love to hear it. It seems like it will be a lovely campanula.

Alaina Sloo
Northern California



-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Peplowski [E*@AOL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 1999 6:23 PM
To: shadegardens@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: [SG] campanulas for shade


Hello Shade Robins:

Since this list is very quiet, I assume you are all in malaise from the hot
summer and the (east coast) rainy humid hot September.

I am there too so have been making notes on next year's garden.  In a book
by
Robin Lane Fox there are good suggestions on using campanula in the shade.

The first is c. alliariifola 'Ivory Bells'.  He says "everybody knows about
the hosta, but nobody bothers with this equally obliging Campanula.  This
plant "will grow almost anywhere, even in dry shade".

Next is c. latiloba. That one seems hard to locate.  Also for dry shade and
under shrubs.  A variety called 'Percy Piper' is a deep blue violet.  This
is
described as robust.

A third is c. burghaltii.

Last is the c. punctata.  Punctata is one of those plants with a warning.  I
have one in the shady edge of the rock garden in poor soil. It doesn't do
much running around.

All of these plants seem to carry bell shaped pendant flowers and would
offer
something new to try in the shade.  Seed may be the way for American
gardeners to have these plants.  Arrowhead Alpines carries two of them for
spring shipment.

Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY
z4
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