Balloon shaped buds opening to white bells in mid to late summer
Size: 24" x 12" Care: Full sun to part shade in moist well-drained to well-drained soil. Native: Eastern Asia Awards: England's Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
Platycodon is Greek from platys meaning “broad” and kodon meaning “bell”, referring to the shape of the flower. Planthunter Robert Fortune found the white form in a nursery near Shanghai and sent it to England in 1845.
Size: 4” x 4” Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil Native: Alps & Pyrenees Mountains
Grown in gardens for thousands of years. Sempervivum means “live forever.” Romans planted Hens and chicks on their roofs to ward off lightning. As a succulent it holds water and is probably more difficult to catch fire. “This practice was preserved for historians when Charlemagne (720-814), first Holy Roman Emperor and unifier of a large part of northern Europe, ordered that all villagers within his crown lands plant houseleeks on their roofs, presumably as a safety measure. He decreed: Et ille hortulanus habeat super domum suam Iovis barbam. (And the gardener shall have house-leeks growing on his house. Capitulare de villis, about 795, LXX.)”
Tanacetum niveum Silver tansy, Snow tansy Z 5-9
Profusion of small classic daisies May-July atop fragrant silver foliage
Purple, upfacing bells for months in mid to late summer
Size: 4-6” x 20” Care: full sun-part shade in moist well-drained soil Native: Northern Yugoslavia Awards: England’s Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit. Top rated for ornamental traits and landscape performance by the Chicago Botanic Garden & Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick.
Campanula is Latin meaning “little bell.” In 1629 Parkinson described campanulas as “cherished for the beautie of their flowers.” This species named for one of its discoverers, Franz Edler von Portenschlag-Ledermayer (1772-1822). 1st described inSystema Vegetabilium 5: 93 in 1819. Listed in Sanders’ Flower Garden in 1913.