Chinese Delphinium a Favorite Flower

With its ability to get along with everything in the border, its long flowering season and excellent qualities as a cut flower, I like the Chinese Delphinium as my favorite flower.

I plant seed in July, cover with a 1/4 inch of soil (ours is sandy), keep shaded and moist and soon have sturdy seedlings. These may be transplanted that autumn to permanent positions or left for spring planting. In either case, a winter mulch must be applied but not on the plants as the tops will rot. It should be applied around them.

Chinese Delphiniums have long tap roots but nevertheless transplant with no difficulty. The advantage of fall transplanting is that the next season the plants are larger. From my experience, they are hardy plants that are not bothered by insects or disease.

The spring growth of this flower is interesting and looks like fern. By keeping seed pods cut, this hardy larkspur prevails from June to September. The beautiful colors, white, dark and light blue, combine nicely with other flowers in arrangements.

In my border, light blue is planted in back of yellow Coreopsis lanceolata which flower most of the summer, too. Here there is contrast of line as well as color. The white is planted near Gaillardia Portola Hybrids. And the prettiest picture of all is a planting of dark blue Chinese Delphinium as fillers around the stalks of white trumpet lilies. The delphiniums are airy enough so as not to cause botrytis or other trouble to the lilies.

by G Bennett, NY

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