Bellflower
Campanula species. CAMPANULACEAE.
Planting and Growing Bellflower
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow bellflower in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, and root structure of bellflower
- Plant hardiness and growing conditions for bellflower
- Season of bloom and planting time for bellflower
- When, how deep, and where to plant bellflower
- How to plant bellflower
- Watering, fertilizing, care, and pests or diseases of bellflower
- Landscape and container uses of bellflower
- Comments about bellflower and its features
Growing Bellflower
More than 300 species of mostly low, slender, leafy annual, biennial, or perennial herbs, 6–36 in. (15–90 cm) tall. Shiny or textured, green, spear-shaped leaves, 4–8 in. (10–20 cm) long, with central flower stalks, forming a circular, radiating base. Evergreen, zones 9–10.
Bellflower species include many closely related plants with similar care needs. Choose from cultivars with spreading, trailing, or upright habits to fit the needs of your landscaping use of each plant.
See also two closely related plants, Canterbury Bells, Campanula medium, a biennial with striking, sometimes double flowers, and Willow Bellflower, Campanula persicifolia, a perennial with a narrow and upright habit. Chilean Bellflower, Nolana paradoxa, has similar appearing flowers, but is classified within another genus, NOLANACEAE.
Planting and Care Guide
Blooms
Many blue, purple, violet, white, cup-shaped flowers, to 1-1/2-in. (38-mm) wide, in spring–autumn.
Best Climates
Plant as tender annual or mulch heavily, zones 3–5; ground hardy, zones 6–10.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp, well-drained humus. Fertility: Average. 6.5–7.0 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Spring in full to filtered sun, 12–18 in. (30–45 cm) apart, after frost hazard has passed.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep moist. Fertilize annually in spring. Deadhead spent flowers. Divide when crowded to maintain vigor. Propagate by cuttings, division, seed.
About This Plant
Good choice for accents, beds, borders, fencelines, ground covers, walls in cottage, rock, wildlife gardens. Good for cutting. Attracts birds, hummingbirds. Spider mite, slug, snail and aster yellows susceptible.
Common Species of Slipper Flower
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- Aucher bellflower, Campanula aucheri
- Bearded bellflower, Campanula barbara
- Canterbury bells, Campanula medium
- Carpathian bellflower, Campanula carpatica
- Clustered bellflower, Campanula glomerata
- Coventry bells, Campanula trachelium
- Creeping bellflower, Campanula rapunculoides
- Great bellflower Campanula latifolia
- Greek bellflower, Campanula drabifolia
- Milky bellflower, Campanula lactiflora
- Russian bellflower, Campanula boboniensis
- Serbian bellflower, Campanula poscharskyana
- Spurred bellflower, Campanula alliariaefolia
- Tall bellflower, Campanula americana
- Trailing Italian bellflower, Campanula isophylla
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About Slipper Flower
More than 300 species of perennial, biennial, or annual herbs are included in the Campanula genus. They are native to the northern hemisphere, with many Mediterranean and Eurasian species.
All have showy, bell- or cup-shaped flowers arranged vertically in alternating or whorled tiers along a spiking stalk. Keep bellflowers blooming reliably from spring to autumn by deadheading their spent stalks after flowers fade.
Bellflowers are colorful companions that brighten the garden. Plant them as a low ground cover for banks, trailing them over walls, and spike them in baskets, containers, and pots. Plant bellflowers in the middle of beds or use them as backgrounds in borders.
Commonly cultivated bellflower species range in height from 4–6 in. (10–15 cm) tall for ground cover varieties to more than 6 ft. (1.8 m) for tall plants with shrublike habits. While the solitary or clustered flowers vary in size, most are 1–2-1/2-in. (25–63-mm) wide.
For other ways to use bellflowers in various landscape settings, choose the smallest species and create accents, borders, and edgings in rock and small-space gardens.
Most bellflowers are fast-growing plants. They are susceptible to spider mites and harbor both slugs and snails. Although mostly disease resistant, they are susceptible to aster yellows, a viral infection.
Those with sprawling habits are good ground covers and edgings for use in cottage and natural gardens, while the tall-habit species make good backgrounds for beds and borders.
Choose from the commonly cultivated species listed.
Planting and Caring for Slipper Flower
Start annual species 6–8 weeks before the last frost in cold-winter climates and transplant them into the garden when the soil warms, or plant biennial and perennial species outdoors in autumn.
Bellflowers perform best in sites with full or lightly filtered sun, those with at least 5–6 hours per day. They grow best in evenly damp, loose, well-drained humus. Always water them at their base.
For best flowering, feed them with balanced fertilizer at the beginning of the season during planting or, for established plants, as the new foliage emerges in spring.
Flowers open vertically from bottom to top of the stalk, each lasting several days. As the flowers fade, pinch them off for best display, then deadhead the spent stalk to encourage new stalks and branches to form.
Replant true annual species and those perennial species used as annuals in cold-winter climates each year. Biennial and perennial plants perform best when transplanted from nursery-container starts, or from starts grown from seed in individual 4 in. (10 cm) pots. Some biennial cultivars will bloom in both the first and second season, forming seeds their second year.
All Campanula species—especially Canterbury bells and Coventry bells—are heritage favorites with centuries of cultivation.
Because many of the species hail from Mediterranean Italy, Greece, and Turkey, they also are good choices for natural and rock gardens in semi-arid climates.
Bellflowers are destined to become personal favorites as the beauty of their graceful spires transforms low beds into towers of blooms, and slopes into fields of color.