My best friend Rob is a writer and spends most of the year living here at No 19. When thinking about coming here from England and spending more time, one of the motivations was peace and quiet, but anyone who lives in a tiny country village knows that they’re often quite noisy places. So when he works, he locks himself in his room, writes, and rewrites chapters of his book surfacing only for cups of coffee and the occasional chat.
Rob is also a keen gardener and has mentioned numerous times how much he loves Aquilegia. And why wouldn’t he? They’re wonderful flowers, I love them too, and the garden is full of them. In fact they seem to do so well here that they’re growing among the stones on the driveway and at this time of year they look amazing.
Unfortunately Rob somehow always manages to be away when they’re flowering and doesn’t get to see them in the garden. So this morning while I was out chatting with the cats, I thought I’d take some pictures of them so he could at least have an idea of how lovely they look (isn’t technology so amazing!)
While focusing on them pretty closely I started to see just how amazing and beautiful they were… and also realized I didn’t know that much about them. There’s something quite insect-like about the flower heads... they’re almost alien.
Also called Columbine, and Granny’s Bonnet, there are about 60 - 70 species and they are often found in meadows and hedgerows. The flowers of some species were eaten in small quantities by Native Americans with fresh greens and were apparently safe. But the plant's seeds and roots are highly poisonous, so maybe it’s better to avoid eating them altogether!
They attract a lot of insect attention and while taking pictures there were so many bees hopping from flower to flower even at such an early hour.
When I first came to No 19 I started out scattering seeds to get Aquilegia established in the garden but found that most of the flowers ended up dark blue/indigo. Rob said that where he used to live in England the flowers would all end up a soft pink after a few year. Every year I try to introduce a new plant to the garden and buy some seeds which I scatter around existing clumps to get some variety in colour and shape. As I find the leaves almost as beautiful as the flowers I also think they add beauty to the beds long after the flowers have faded.
The Aquilegia I have here also seem to grow pretty tall which looks lovely amongst the other spring flowers and along the driveway, and when the cats or Lu accidentally snap them off, they add a splash of colour to the house.
I’m hoping for Rob, that next year he’s around to see them for himself, but until then I guess my pictures will have to do 💙💜💙
