Aquilegia alpina is richly-colored Columbine from the Alps. Like American Columbine, it’s nectar is a great food source of hummingbirds, various Hummingbird Moths, and a number of bee and butterfly species. Blooms often begin around the time that hummingbirds appear in Northern Climates, and continue on into early summer.

Alpina is a great addition to woodland edge gardens, borders around ones home, rain gardens and rock gardens. Once established, it will send up a rush of deep purple blooms that enrich what ever environment it is in.

Wonderfully hardy, this unique flowering member of the ranunculus family provides a lush, tight flush of color in a wide variety of environments, making it a great addition for you and your area pollinators in rock gardens, border edges and cottage gardens alike.

Care:

Provide an area of loosened soil enriched by organic matterfor your American Columbine. Loosening the soil to one foot wide and one foot deep will create ideal conditions for your plant/s to establish themselves and flourish. After planting your Columbine, water heavily and make sure that the soil doesn’t dry out while the roots are establishing themselves. Once established, American Columbine can tolerate short dry periods. Columbine requires very little maintenance once established, and sometimes will self sow. Periodic weeding is helpful, as with virtually all plants, though Columbine is more tolerant of sharing space with wild up-growth than most other plants are.

A special thank you to H. Zell and Robert Flogous-Frost for their respectable contributing photographs.