Campanula ‘Summertime Blues’ a Tall Bellflower
Campanula 'Summertime Blues'
Pretty blue or purple flowers are always a treat in the garden. I added a taller bellflower to my garden earlier this spring, Campanula ‘Summertime Blues’. It has the typical purplish blue flowers of Campanula, and is supposed to bloom for a long time. It is covered in many beautiful bells. This bellflower is planted in a more sunny/part shade area of the garden.
Campanula 'Summertime Blues' lots of flowers
Campanula ‘Summertime Blues’ is supposed to be very well behaved, not seeding or sending out runners. I haven’t had any problems with my bellflowers spreading to the point of annoyance, other than C. glomerata (which is my least favourite bellflower) self seeding, but if they do overly well in your area, this might be a good one for your garden.
Campanula 'Summertime Blues' flower with lobelia behind
The plants are about 70 cm (2.5 ft) tall. The foliage is a little coarse on this perennial, but the colouring is nice. The leaves are a dark, rich green, while the contrasting stems are reddish. When the multitude of flowers open on ‘Summertime Blues’, the foliage is the last thing you notice.
These flowers of Campanula ‘Summertime Blues’ have the classic downward facing bells. The ends of the bells flare out slightly. The flowers are larger than most bellflowers, about 5 cm (2 in) long. They look almost blue individually, but in front of the bright blue lobelia you can see that Summertime Blues are actually a lavender blue, with a slight silver tone. The buds are a reddish purple colour. There are an amazing number of flowers, from the top to the bottom of this large bellflower, so it doesn’t really need other plants in front of it. I have an annual short blue lobelia in front of them.
Campanula 'Summertime Blues' and lobelia
I have this Campanula planted in front of some Phlox paniculata (tall garden phlox). Since ‘Summertime Blues’ is supposed to flower all season, they should look nice later in the summer with the flowering phlox. There are some Dianthus (pink carnations) to one side, and a pink ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peony behind them. The river of sky blue lobelia flows in and around the area.
Because I only added the perennials to the garden a month and a half ago, it’s hard to tell what the typical flower number will be. However, there were no blooms on these bellflowers when I bought them, and now they are laden with flowers. The plants droop a bit with such a heavy load of pretty petals, but manage to hold them all off of the ground. I might have this Campanula give some lessons to the peony.
Campanula ‘Summertime Blues’ adds many beautiful purplish blue flowers to the garden. I’ll know more about its actual bloom length by this fall, and its hardiness by next spring.
Campanula 'Summertime Blues' 8 bells
You can read about a wide variety of bellflowers that I grow in this previous post.
That sounds good a campanula that flowers all season.
How are you campanula at multiplying? I know some varieties are fairly vigorous… Very pretty, though!! :-) How are things with you these days?? We’re having a return of some pleasantly coolish weather. I’ll enjoy that for awhile, as we had 90’s a couple of weeks ago (with a lot of rain, which made it positively impossible to be outdoors!). Happy Day! :-)
Joanne, my longest flowering Campanula are the C. porscharskyana and C. rotundifolia, which bloomed for more than 4 months last year. Then the C. carpatica and C. cochlearifolia, which bloom for more than 3 months. These are supposed to be long blooming, so I’m assuming they will have a similar bloom length, but I’ll know more by fall.
Shady Gardener, the only Campanula that I find too vigorous in my garden is glomerata. It was here when I moved in, and I’ve removed all but one group. The only reason I’ve kept that one group is because it looks so pretty with the iris and peony. Summertime Blues is supposed to be particularly well behaved.
We’ve had very pleasant weather, with most days having a high of about room temperature, 20 C to 25 C (68 F to 77 F). I’ve been puttering about in my garden everyday. Today I did a lot of pruning of low tree branches that were in the way, and I edged the back garden bed by digging with my ice chopper and shovel.
What a pretty one, and to bloom all summer is even better!
Catherine, I wasn’t expecting this many blooms on them, so that’s a welcome surprise. I’ll see next year if it continues to have as many flowers.
I have my plants that like a little more sun in this garden area, but a couple of maple branches had grown to shade this section, so today I cut back a few of them. It’s a little brighter now, so they should keep up the flower production. The lilac, peony and carnations should be a little happier too.
NS – I planted lots of campanula – and glomerata is one of them. I hope I don’t run into the same luck as you did with them. Between the catmint and the monarda – I have enough “spreaders”!
Beth, the C. glomerata look nice when they are in flower, but I find them much shorter blooming than all of the other Campanula. If I cut off the top flower after it’s done blooming, some of them will get some more flowers at the leaf axils, but its not impressive. Then, their foliage tends to deteriorate after blooming, and they are not attractive. They also spread too much. I would be careful about removing all spent flowers to keep them from seeding. I’ve removed most of the glomerata I inherited, and have just kept one small group, because the dark purple looks so nice with the pink peony and the yellow iris. The glomerata are my least favourite of the bellflowers, and I wouldn’t plant them in a new garden.
There is something very charming about nodding bell-shaped flowers. I think they add a woodland touch to any garden.
To have ones that are such profilic bloomers must be a treat!
The Garden Ms. S, I’m surprised that they keep their flowers off of the ground, since there are so many of them on each stem. It’s nice that they aren’t just at the top of the plants too. There are a lot of bellflowers blooming now that July is here.