(Revised 31 Jan 2011)
Aquilegias have the refreshing look of wild-flowers in a home garden, and that look makes it hard to weed them out when their self-sown seedlings spring up in the wrong places in the garden. They would not willingly naturalize at my cottage because of the dry and sandy condition.

The problem with growing Aquilegia is they self-sown wildly, and effectively become messy weeds making maintenance of a neat perennial bed almost impossible. (I often treat them as ‘free filler plants’.) Dead heading is not a solution for me.

They also cross pollinate easily between various types, and rapidly degenerate into the most common purple colour columbine. Since we still like aquilegia, I adopted an approach in the last few years to bring them under control (still trying). I allowed a specific type and colour to self sow in their designated beds, and weeded out any deviations and and excess, and ‘diligently’ weeded out all seedlings in the beds where I do not intend to have them. For the plants that are allowed to stay, I cut most of them down to ground level after major flowering period (if I have the time), keeping only a few stalks to self sow. It may not be a perfect or even a lasting solution, but it at least allows me to have a few varieties of aquilegia around without their weed seedlings annoying me too much. At least, I hope this can slow down the degeneration.

Aquilegia canadensis

Aquilegia canadensis is a small and dwarf form of Aquilegia. It is native to our area. In fact the little patch I grow came from seeds collected by the ditch at our cottage.

Aquilegia canadensis

Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’

I have one fair size patch of Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’ left. They were from seeds purchased from Jelitto.

Aquilegia canadensis 'Little Lanterns'

Aquilegia canadensis ‘Corbett’

Another Aquilegia from seeds purchased from Jelitto.

Aquilegia canadensis 'Corbett'

Aquilegia vulgaris

Because of the easy cross pollination, what I called Aquilegia vulgaris here are likely not pure.

Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Black Barlow’

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Black Barlow' seedling

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Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Ruby port’

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Ruby port'

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Ruby port' in the garden

Aquilegia vulgaris ?

Over the years, all the Aquilegia varieties in my garden had mingle so much that I refer to them generally as Aquilegia vulgaris ‘?’. Also, there are many from seeds that I purchased, and lost ther ID labels. I tried to weed their seedlings out from most of the beds every year, and move some to beds that are not yet in active use as fillers. However, some of the seedlings happened to have flowers with colours that I like. I attempted to save these and perhaps propagate them vegetatively. Here are a few examples.

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Aquilegia '?'

Aquilegia '?'

This one is from seeds purchased from UK, and I lost the label for its ID.

Aquilegia '?'

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