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.” This species named for one of its discoverers, Franz Edler von Portenschlag-Ledermayer (1772-1822). 1st described in Systema Vegetabilium 5: 93 in 1819
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.)”
Crambe cordifolia Colewort Z. 5-9
Giant profusion of white flowers from late May to June
Giant profusion of white flowers from late May to June
Size: 7-8’ x 5’ Care: full sun in well-drained soil Native: Caucasus
First collected before 1863. ”This is a stately and noble plant, with large heart shaped leaves. The loose flower-heads, which are often 6 feet in height, and nearly as much through, are composed of myriads of small white flowers, which at a distance may be likened to a giant specimen of Gypsophila; it blooms during June and July.” H.H. Thomas 1915.