Aquilegia 'Christa Barlow'

These cute blooms are like little purple petticoats. Deep, violet blue, double flowers with a touch of white at the petal tips. The petal reverse is purple with a white shadow.

The blooms of Aquilegia ‘Christa Barlow’ have old fashioned appeal and are just gorgeous, they face outward and are spurless, so look a bit like teeny tiny Dahlias.

Aquilegias are cottage garden essentials with sweet flowers and delightfully lacy, fern like foliage. They make a beautiful foil for the fading spring flowering bulbs - as their fresh foliage begins growing in early spring, when the bulbs are going into senescence.

Aquilegia are suitable for growing in a lightly shaded to morning sun position. You could plant them in borders, as massed plantings, in beds or in containers.

After the initial flowering has finished, you can cut the stems back to the basal foliage and add some fertiliser to encourage more blooms. You can leave the last flowers of the season to form seed heads for future generations of plants, keeping in mind seedlings are unlikely to flower true to type as Aquilegias hybridise easily.

Aquilegias really are a cottage garden essential with sweet flowers and delightful lacy foliage. It is hard to show how really amazing they are, you need to try them for yourself.