Bell Flowers, Campanulas

I am very attracted to flowers in the shape of a bell. When we bought our first home it had a lovely garden with lots of European flowers in it. My Mum had been a great gardener so I know a bit about gardening.

Canterbury Bells

Our new garden had plants that I had not seen before. One was the English Canterbury Bells.



Canterbury Bells

My favourite colour is mauve, purple or violet, whatever you want to call it. These lovely flowers came up in my front garden and I was very excited about them. They were shaped like a bell and were mauve as well.

However as I worked in my garden, I also found that I got a rash whenever I rubbed up against these plants. How could they be so lovely and give me a rash at the same time?

These lovely bell shaped flowers came to England from Spain in the 1500s.

The word Campanulate means the shape of a bell. Campanology is the art of ringing the church bells. The art of ringing church bells has come back into fashion of late after nearly dying out with the demise of attendances at the village church. It is good to keep alive old practices.



Campanula Punctata

I have had many different varieties of campanula over the years. My latest acquisition I received from a neighbour. They have lots of this lovely plant growing as an edging plant along the edge of their garden. It flowers for months.

They gave me a tray of cuttings they had grown for me. I placed them on the lawn in my back yard awaiting planting. Well my little bantams found them and devoured every last leaf on them. They were delighted and made a bee line for them each day when I let them out of their pen. I was devastated. However, the plants are slowly recovering with Spring on the way.