Tall Bellflower- Campanula Americana

This is the Tall Bellflower, a biennial that grows on the wood edges and blooms at a time when there are few other wildflowers to see in my part of Nashville. I used to have this at my old house. It grew en masse under a peach tree in my border. But after a few weeks it withered and died ,as all biennials do, leaving a bare patch in the shade. I loved it though. I thought of it as a southern substitute for delphinium, a plant I never wasted my time trying to grow. I did grow annual larkspur, another delphinium substitute, but it bloomed early, and was gone by June.

I did see a Pacific Hybrid Delphinium in this city once. I went on a garden tour with the Perennial Plant Society. We visited a garden in Belle Meade. Its owner was a Nashville heiress, who sent her gardener out to answer our questions. The delphinium was in a pot, and I would wager it came out of a cool greenhouse for the day to remind those of us less fortunate that there are still things that only old money can buy. But the plant was a prop. A ringer, if you will. Brought in to meet White Flower Farm standards of garden excellence. After all, that Connecticut gardening institution and style arbiter declares in its catalogue that "Delphiniums are outstanding elements of every well-bred garden". Too bad for us Southerners. We vulgarians must make do with crinums and crepe myrtles and the Tall Bellflower. Poor us.