... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Fragrant Columbines

I grew the Himalayan Columbine (Aquilegia fragrans) about 10 years ago and really liked the jasmine scented flowers. Unfortunately the plant just never was happy here. So a few years ago I purchased another plant to try to cross with all of the typical, common, blue-purple Aquilegia vulgaris types that are growing out front. Well, the new plant was just as puny as the first, but luckily I did get it to set a bit of seed from the blue-purple vulgaris pollen before it croaked. There are two of the color forms that the F1 have shown, a near white that is similar to fragrans and a light blue. These F1 are not as powerfully fragrant as Aquilegia fragrans, but they definitely are fragrant. And they're super vigorous! The upper flowers are quite a bit taller than a yardstick (meterstick) - see yardstick hidden in the bottom picture. I've started a small population of F2 to see if I can work back towards more fragrance while maintaining the healthy growth habits.

1 comment:

  1. If you are interested in fragrant columbines, be sure to check out the amazing selections from Plant World Seeds. They've been working on this a while, and the have some gorgeous, vigorous, fragrant stuff.

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