Three C's

Though I love my two magnolias, my ornamental crabapple is hands-down my favourite spring flowering tree. When the flower buds appear, they are a light, shell pink. Then the flowers open to a soft, creamy white. 

And the show isn't over when the flowers fade and the petals flutter to the ground. Bright red fruit add 

color to the garden right into winter.

Another garden 'C' is Columbine. If your garden experiences a bit of a lull between spring bulbs and flowering perennials, think about adding some columbine.

 

These are Columbine that I photographed last June at Merlin's Hollow, David Tomlinson's 

garden in Aurora, Ontario.  

As the sway in the breeze, the delicate bells always make me think of ballet dancers or garden fairies.

Columbine come in a variety of pastel shades and bi-colors.

The flowers are held on upright stems over a fairly compact mound of ferny, light-green foliage. 

Columbine like to self-seed. You never know where they will turn up next.

The trails of leaf miners often disfigure the leaves of my Columbine, but if you remove 

the damaged foliage, fresh growth will appear.

This Centaurea hypoleuca 'John Coutts' is new to my garden. The plant first caught my eye at the Royal Botanical Gardens and I had to have one. These perennial cornflowers are cousins of common Bachelor's Buttons and have lavender-pink flowers in early summer. 

Centaurea hypoleuca 'John Coutts' forms a bushy clump of divided, grey-green leaves and will grow in most types of soil, in any sunny location. Be sure to leave some room for this plant because these mature cornflowers can grow 45-60 cm wide by 50-60 cm high.

This is another more compact Centaurea that admired last June at Merlin's Hollow.

My Mom always had the common blue form, Centaurea montana in her garden, but I think I rather like this white variety even better. Both Centaurea are really hardy, easy to grow in any type of soil and prefer full sun (although my Mom managed to grow her's in light shade).

Looking though the spring Gardenimport catalogue, I spotted these two really interesting looking varieties.  Centaurea, 'Purple Heart' has white feathery flowers with a purple heart and Centaurea, 'Black Sprite' has dramatic black flowers. (Click the link for further details.)

This clematis is a final gem that I spotted last June at Merlin's Hollow. This is not a vining clematis, but is rather an upright form; Clematis recta 'Purpurea'. A skyscraper of a plant, it stood a good four feet tall in front of me and was covered in tiny white flowers (not fragrant).

Clematis recta 'Purpurea' prefers the soil to be somewhat moist and likes full sun.

Other Letters of my Garden Alphabet: A is for Astilbe, B is for Butterfly

Have yourself a great weekend everyone! 

P.S. Don't forget to enter the book draw in my previous post. Good Luck!