IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME IX 



No. I02 



Edited by C F. Ball. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



AUGUST 

 1914 



Dwarf Campanulas — Easy and Difficult* ^oZ: 



By Murray Hornibrook, Knapton, Abbeyleix. 



NEW Y 



M 



dAkU 



It would not be possible to compress within the 

 limits of one article anything like a comprehen- 

 sive list of dwarf Campanulas ; nor, possibly, 

 is such a list necessary for the requirements of 

 the general reader. On the present occasion, 

 therefore, I am confining my attention prin- 

 cipally to those which I have found desirable 

 not alone for their beauty, but also for their 

 simple requirements, and to these I have added 

 a few equally beautiful, but not so easy to 

 cultivate. 



Campanulas are possibly second only to 

 Saxifrages in value as rock plants. The majority 

 of the dwarf varieties are truly perennial — neat 

 in habit, easily to cultivate, and beautiful both 

 in leaf and in flower. Generally speaking they 

 grow freely in stony soil or in cracks and chinks of 

 the rocks, in sun or shade ; most of them spread 

 underground by running roots, the smallest 

 bit of which will, as a rule, make a new plant if 

 potted up ; and they can also be increased by 

 seed — from which the plants vary a good deal. 



C. acutangula flowers in July and August, and 

 is still almost unknown and extremely rare 

 (it Was figured in Irish Gardening, October, 

 1912), it is one of the dwarf est members of its 

 race. Its foliage resembles a tiny mat-forming 

 C. garganica ; its flowers, borne erect on inch 

 stems, are star-shaped and of a red-violet 

 colour, not unlike that of C. abietina ; it runs 

 about quite freely in very stony loam in a hot 

 pocket, and seems to prefer such a situation to 

 moraine, in which it lives, but is not increasing 

 so rapidly. 



The plant I have as C. Aiicheri seems to me 

 to be so close to C. Saxifraga as to be almost 

 indistinguishable, yjossibly the former is larger 

 in the flower ; both are deciduous, throwing up 

 from the root stock in very early spring long, 

 entire spoon-shaped leaves and very large, deep 

 bright purple bells on single stems. With me 

 they are the earliest Campanulas to flower, being 

 in full flower in early May ; they like sun and 

 moraine or stony soil. 



C. barbata and its white form, with ])recious 

 - bells and their silky hairs, seem perennial and 

 fi robust in stony loam, especially if planted at 

 ^ the foot of a rock. Its flowering period is 

 _ unfortunately short. 



C. garganica is at home when planted in 

 horizontal cracks and between large stones ; in 

 such situations its stems and flowers hug the 

 surface of the stone, and most of its forms can 

 stand unlimited sun — flowers, starry with white 

 eye and rather Washy in tone. Var. erinus is, I 

 think, on the whole, the most satisfactory form, 

 but a fine new form of obscure origin Avas found 

 at the Tully Nursery ; its colour is a deep 

 imperial violet-blue relieved by a white eye. 

 To my mind it is by far the most beautiful form, 

 and has received an award of merit under the 

 name C garganica W. H. Paine. This form 

 succeeds best with me in half shade in a 

 sloping pocket of light vegetable soil. Another 

 good form with self-coloured flowers of pale 

 mauve is sent out under the name of C. 

 fenestrellata. 



C. macrorhiza prefers a sunny chink. It is a 

 cousin to C. rotundifolia, with large wide-open, 

 rath'^r Washy mauve bells. Its chief recom- 

 mendation is the length of its flowering season. 



G. muralis is possibly the most satisfactory of 

 all dwarf Campanulas, indestructably hai'dy. 

 easy to increase, easy to grow in any soil and 

 any situation, beautiful in floWer and in foliage, 

 it is absolutely indispensable. I am under the 

 impi-ession that the very large dark form we grow 

 in Ireland as C. Portenschlagiana is finer than 

 the English variety of that name. Certainly 

 C. muralis seeds itself freely in my garden and 

 varies from seed, but curiously enough it does 

 not seem to hybridise with other ('ampanulas. 

 I have never succeeded in crossing it with any 

 other variety (nor have I heard of any C. 

 muralis cross), while C rotundifolia seems to 

 give hybrids for every variety I ])ollinate it with. 

 C. Muretti is a distinct compact form with 

 paler flowers. 



C. planifolia is curiously little known, its small, 

 tight rosettes look like a hyl)rid I'^mbrosa Saxi- 

 frage, its blossoms are held erect, and open quite 

 flat ; it seems to have no fads, but increases slowly. 



C. pusilla and C. csespitosa in all their forms 

 may lie Weeds in some gardens, but are none the 

 less charming and indispensable ; they look their 

 best when sjirouting from some chink in a wall 

 or up between the flags of a path. I do not 

 know whether the ])lant We grow in Ireland as 



