Adenophora and Its Evil Twin Revisited

by Kathy Purdy on November 17, 2009 · 8 comments

in Miscellaneous

Campanula rapunculoides: Good looking but hardly innocent

Campanula rapunculoides: Good looking but hardly innocent

A while back I wrote an essay for Horticulture detailing my attempt to figure out the difference between ladybells and creeping bellflower, and I wrote up a blog post with additional information. Anne Larson, the Des Moines Gardening Examiner, has tracked down more information about these two plants, including how to determine if you really have ladybells. One expert she quoted said he has yet to find a bona fide Adenophora in the horticultural trade. You might want to read the article and check out your ladybells next summer.

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What is life, and what is gardening, if one is not always ready to make new friends and make new experiments?
Vita Sackville-West

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Providence Acres Farm - Sheryl January 31, 2010 at 4:29 pm

I can’t help it, I love any kind of canpanula. There are so many of them and they are all such great garden plants. Perhaps if it is cut back and not allowed to go to seed, it will behave itself.

I have had some horribly agressive, invasive plants over the years. I don’t find this one that bad.

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2 Cool Garden Things January 9, 2010 at 10:39 am

Ah yes…I can’t decide if I hate this plant…I tend to just round it up because of the way it spreads into my lawn. Nice blog!

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3 Ilona November 26, 2009 at 1:43 am

Twitter: @truegrit

I wrote up a profile of Adenophora confusa, which is the way it was identified when I ordered it from WFF. I have good clay loam soil and it has never been aggressive for me. I’m not familiar with the evil twin…
.-= Ilona´s last blog ..Contorted Hazel =-.

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4 eliz November 22, 2009 at 11:33 pm

Oh yes. I know this plant (the bad one) well. I don’t really have the space to worry about it, but it runs rampant through our alley. I pick it now and then.

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5 Ted November 18, 2009 at 7:59 pm

Interesting – I thought I had both in my garden. The Adenophera I bought from White Flower Farm 12 years ago or so. It has never been aggressive in the least, either by seed or rhizome. In fact I’ve often wished it had a bit more oomph. The campanula came on a pass along plant. I weed it often and never let it go to seed so far it been supressed. I take care of several gardens where it was given free reign before my arrival – so I do know what a nightmare it can be. Everything is dormant now, but I’ll do some careful checking next fall. If my Adenophera is really a Campanula – I wonder what species – it certainly is not very rapacious.

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6 Mr. McGregor's Daughter November 18, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Twitter: @suburbangarden

I just always assumed that Adenophora was a nasty thug. I’m always afraid of anything with the epithet, rapunculoides, which shares a root with rapacious, meaning greedy or ravenous.
.-= Mr. McGregor’s Daughter´s last blog ..Garden Wish List =-.

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7 Garden Junkie November 18, 2009 at 9:00 am

Twitter: @GardenJunkie1

Oh no. I just posted a picture of my Adenophora for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. At least, that’s what I thought it was and what it was called when I bought it through mail order from High Country Gardens two years ago. It’s been quite well-behaved so I thought it was the “real thing” (in contrast to those dratted Cherry Bells in the front garden which took over most of the bed within 6 months!). But now I find out that it’s probably “campanula horribilis” as someone called it. After reading Anne Larson’s article I peeled a couple of flowers only to find a disk. Argh. So now what do I do – pull out a plant I adore (and that, so far, hasn’t spread much) or let it go and realize that I may be fighting it for years to come?!
.-= Garden Junkie´s last blog ..Garden Bloggers Bloom Day – November 2009 =-.

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8 Anna/Flowergardengirl November 17, 2009 at 6:38 pm

Twitter: @flowergardengal

Kathy, I enjoy mysteries like this. I also enjoy stories about good plant intentions that good bad—like Kudzu that ate the South. Kudzu was suppose to help erosion and now we have it forming sculptures of green monsters as it covers trees, houses, power lines—
.-= Anna/Flowergardengirl´s last blog ..For 15 minutes, I’ve been listening to someone =-.

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