notes and musings from a perennial gardener
Bellflowers, sometimes called harebells, belong to the genus Campanula, named for the bell-shaped flowers they bear. Encompassing over 500 species and subspecies, bellflowers includes tall upright forms to creeping ground covers. Native to temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, most hail from the Mediterranean and Asia, with a few native to North America.
No matter; hardy campanula are both beautiful and easily grown. Let’s look at some of the more commonly available varieties.
No, I don’t mean bluegrass music or feeling down in the dumps. I’m talking about spring bulbs featuring racemes of blue florets. Many are members of the scilla family which encompasses 80 to 90 species all by itself. They bloom at roughly the same time and look similar, so it can be challenging to keep them straight.
To make matters worse, many species are interchangeably referred to as squill or hyacinth because their Latin nomenclature is twisted and still unresolved. Subfamilies like bluebells can be further divided into English, Spanish or Virginia. Then there’s chionodoxa, Siberian squill, muscari, true hyacinth, and camassia — all blue, all spring blooming.
Do you know which is which? Does it matter?
