Columbine Flowers | Garden Tuesday

The columbine flower is a shade loving perennial that readily reseeds in my garden. 

First of all, yes it's it's Monday and this is a Garden Tuesday post.  Tomorrow will be my second endeavor into the Creative Cookie Exchange, so I had to move Garden Tuesday to today.   Perhaps these gorgeous columbine flwoers will comfort you in your confusion.

Columbine flowers are one of my very favorite shade loving perennials.  You can also grow columbine in full sun, but with our hot southern summers, they seem to love the partial shaded area in our bed just out of from the woods.  They are so easy to grow and give so much in return.

A white picket fence is not required, but it does provide the perfect backdrop for these delicate flowers.  Columbine is one of the first plants that start popping up at the end of the winter.  Their clover like leaves appear in a small dense clump.  As the weather starts to warm the the plant grows to a soft mound.

Soon, tall delicate stalks form and reach towards the sky.  One morning you look out and their delicate flower heads are bobbing in the gentle wind.  If you love cottage gardens, you simply must have columbine flowers.  They come in a variety of colors, though I mostly have pinks ranging from very soft to a deep rose.

As if they needed anything else to sell themselves, you will be thrilled to know that hummingbirds love them!  I always see a couple darting it and out feeding on the sweet nectar.

Another bonus is that columbine flowers readily reseed themselves!  You can see above this columbine flower popped up in front of the oakleaf hydrangea.  It looks right at home nestled in with the wild ginger and the painted fern.  If you want to have more control of the reseeding, as soon as the flowers dry, you see long narrow seed heads form.  If you shake them, you can hear all the small black seeds inside.  Just harvest those and sprinkle where you would like the columbine flowers to grow.