Soil and Sun for Columbine Flowers
Columbines, or aquilegia, are lovely woodland plants with blooms in a variety of colors that are surprisingly easy to grow. Since they grow wild in woodland and mountain areas, they do best in a location with partial sun or dappled shade. They will suffer in full afternoon sun, so observe the spot where you want to plant columbine for a few days to see how much sun it will get.
Try to choose a spot that is sunny in the morning and lightly shaded in the afternoon, perhaps near trees. The best soil for columbines is moist and rich. It shouldn’t dry out too quickly, but shouldn’t show puddles after rain, either. A note for high-altitude gardeners: columbine can be planted up to 9,000 feet, and some varieties thrive even at 10,000 feet.
Starting Columbine Flowers from Seed
You may want to try growing columbine on your own from seed. It is a biennial plant that will not flower until its second year, however. Columbine seeds must have a cold period of three to four weeks before germination will occur. Keep your seed packets in the refrigerator before sowing in the spring, or simply plant seeds in the fall and let nature take its course in the spring.
They should be planted in moist soil, and covered with a shallow sprinkling of soil. Then place them in a warm, sunny location until germination, which should take about 30 days. Columbine seedlings can be transplanted outside after they develop their first pair of true leaves and are a few inches tall.
Growing Columbine Flowers in Containers
Columbines do well in containers, but remember they will attract hummingbirds and bees wherever they are placed. If you want to see hummingbirds outside your window, try a window box. If you don’t want bees on your doorstep, place columbine away from entrances. Columbines don’t like deep soil beds, so a shallow container works fine. Be sure you plant them in a rich flower potting mix that will retain enough water, and follow the above guidelines for sun and shade.
Make sure they have lateral room; plant columbines at least a foot apart, as they will spread out quickly once they are established. In a container, columbines will dry out more than usual, so mulch is a good idea to keep the moisture in the soil. Apply a light layer of mulch around the base of the plants. This also has the benefit of keeping the soil cooler, since columbines don’t do well with heat.
Caring for Columbine Flowers
Don’t let columbines dry out too much. Water when the soil is dry, and fertilize about once a month with liquid fertilizer. Regular fertilizing will help the plants produce their brightly colored blooms and grow thick foliage.
Another option is to add a time-release fertilizer in granulated form into the soil at planting time. Deadhead the flowers as they wilt throughout the summer and fall, if you aren’t planning to reseed more columbines with the seedpods. This also will keep the flowers blooming longer.
If your columbines are vigorous enough to overgrow their container or location by midsummer, you may want to prune them back a little for maintenance. Serious pruning of established columbines, however, should be done in the early spring, when it encourages new growth. Don’t prune when the plant is still growing in the fall, as this will signal it to put on more growth, which will likely be damaged by frosts.
Divide columbines every two or three years to help them stay strong, by digging them up, shaking off the soil, and gently pulling the roots apart to yield a new section of plants. Columbines don’t last forever in one planting; you can expect three to five years of good blooms before starting again with new seeds.
Want to learn more about growing columbines?
The Denver Plant Company provides information and seeds from the state whose national flower is columbine.
Colorado State University’s Plant Talk site discusses care of columbines.
See some common varieties of columbine in a directory of perennials from The University of Illinois’ Urban Extension.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Can you tell me why a Sweet Bubbie bush blooms have no smell. I have had this one for years and it never has a smell. Can you advise me what to do?
Can you tell me why my potted Columbine plant seems to hate when I water it. I live in NC so the summers are pretty hot. I keep it on my covered balcony that gets some sun, but mainly shade. It didn’t seem to do well in the sunny spots on my balcony so I moved it back to a shady spot, where it does ok. However, every time I water it, the leaves turn yellow, wilt, and die. I never water it on its leaves and because of this wilting, I have only been watering it very lightly once a week. It seems to be doing better, but everything that I read says that Columbine flowers love moist soil. Should I plant it in a different pot maybe? It didn’t flower this year, but it did last year.
Thanks,
Melissa
Can you tell me why my plants aren’t flowering, now. The folage is growing, but no flowers!!!
Hi:
I have ogles of columbine, and located all over in l acre of land. Which means all the soil is different in areas, but regardless the flowers will bloom and they are awesome. But, then all the leaves fall off and just the flowers are left. And it looks ugly. Then the leaves start falling off and have nothing but stems where the flowers were attached, left. Then the leaves start coming back.
What is causing this.
Have a Jesus Day
Phyl
Soon the leaves will start fall off and I have nothing but nothing left. Pretty soon the leaves start coming back
someone planted one near my house before I moved in 6+ years ago. It is spreading in growing in the oddest of places like between cracks of the driveway and house foundation and other miniscule cracks. Honestly I don’t do anyhting to maintain these. I don’t water, fertilize or anything. They just grow, bloom and spread. The sun they get is from the northwest and I in CT (zone 6).
GB
I have several columbine plants in my flower beds. I would like to know what flowers pair good with columbine. Something that blooms after the columbines stop blooming and also some that bloom summer and fall. Thanks very much. My zone is 3 and 4 (utah)
I have ogles of columbine, and located all over in l acre of land. Which means all the soil is different in areas, but regardless the flowers will bloom and they are awesome. But, then all the leaves fall off and just the flowers are left. And it looks ugly. Then the leaves start falling off and have nothing but stems where the flowers were attached, left. Then the leaves start coming back.
What is causing this.
I’m glad I came across this article. I planted some Columbine seeds a week ago along with some Butterfly Flower and Walla Walla onion seeds. The Columbine are the only seeds that haven’t germinated yet. Looking at the package, I expected them to be growing by now since they are treated seeds and are supposed to be faster germinating than untreated seeds; but, with the information I found here I won’t give up on them for a few more weeks. The package made no mention of the seeds needing a cold period, so they didn’t get one. Hopefully that won’t keep them from growing.