If you go to this link to my original blog, you will find a series of photographs of Aquilegias. Some of them are growing here in my own garden, others at the Touchwood Nursery on the Gower (near Swansea). I visited there last May and bought several packets of unusual Aquilegia seeds. I sowed them last year and have just been potting them on (at last) today. A couple have lost their labels, so I will have to wait and see what flowers they have, but I am glad to say that the purple stellata form with variegated leaf, the Roman Bronze and another bronzey-leafed variety have survived the winter. I have Elegance, which has a golden foliage too, and there is a blue and white double (big one), and a pink and yellow double, and a reddish one (forgot name) and a red and yellow. Scientific, moi! I would have looked up the empty seed packets but they are out in what we call the Back Place, which is blardy cold tonight and there isn't a light in there!
Anyway, I am so pleased that spring is on its way now and I am really looking forward to getting to grips with the garden. It has to look at its very best, because of people viewing the house. I have decided to ask for seeds for my birthday next month, so I have spent some time going through my Chiltern Seeds catalogue, and yes, I have put a star beside several Aquilegias I covet . . . I don't think you need to ask what my favourite garden flower is (and I love it in the wild too - it grows along the hedgerows here.) There are about half an acre of wild Aquilegias growing in a local graveyard . . .
