It is in fact the soaked corms of Anemone blanda, a March flowering plant, that is best planted now. Soaking the corms in cold water overnight is supposed to help them to sprout. I have in past years not always followed this recommendation but as this year has been exceptionally dry in Spring and then again in Autumn, so I felt a little helping hand would be useful.
Anemone blanda are fully hardy and once in flower their seed is spread by the wind (I wonder whether this where their common name of windflower is derived from). They soon form colonies, as long as you do not clear the faded foliage too soon.
There is not a huge amount of colour variation, I use 'White Splendour' a lot and am also very fond of the blue hues. They exist in pink as well but I am not very drawn to them. I am happy to wait for the tulips to have my pink fix!
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| Anemone blanda 'White Splendour' (photo credit: RHS) |
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| photo credit: RHS |
It is a fabulous choice for a woodland setting and is happy in sun or partial shade, in fact it will do well under decidious trees because by the time the trees are in leaf again, the anomone's annual cycl will be complete and the corms will lie dormant again until next year.
They say that you can lift the corms and divide but I have never tried this. The tubers are cheap enough to buy in quantity plus I find that anomone blanda will spread itself around by itself quite enough, so has not needed my to propagate.
oooh lovely and again thank you, i have the blue in the garden but we get them quite late on, the flowers have just died off now, i love them especially how tall they grow :) x
ReplyDeleteDeanne, what you have dying off now are asters, similar looking flowers but a completely different plant. Asters are a herbaceous perennial, and you cut the topgrowth off after flowering or in early Spring just when new growth appears at the base.They are also tall, anything from 2ft to 6ft depending on variety.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers in this post are grown from corms, are early spring-flowering and will die back by summer. There is no trafe of them this time of the year, unless you dig up the corms.
I always feel there are not that many really blue flowers - agapanthus being one of them - and your blue anemone is so pretty. Must look for them.
ReplyDeleteMaedi
Haha I laughed at the description - these flowers are so interesting, I rarely see blue flowers!
ReplyDeleteMaedi & Katherine, I will do a post on "blues" at some stage, seems you are not the only poster who cannot find enough blue.
ReplyDelete