White Cup & Saucer
Canterbury Bells
"Canterbury bells, to ring
Summer in with triumphing."
-Dolly Radford
(1864-1920)
(1864-1920)
White "Cup & Saucer" Canterbury Bells (Campanula medium var calycanthema alba) is a hardy biennial that produces basal leaves its first year & blooms wonderfully the second year, then dies out of the garden.
When our Rose Canterbury Bells had run their course & died out along the fenceline, we replaced them with three color varieties of "Cup & Saucers." The spikes of flowers are so much larger & heavier than normal Canterbury Bells they pretty much require staking, but when planted along a picket fence, the fence itself serves as sufficient brace.
If grown from seed they have to be started the year before, but we obtained young plants to install early Spring, setting them about eighteen inches apart. By June the basal leaves send up the stalks of enormous flowers.
With deadheading they can be kept flowery until autumn, though in our garden they are by no means as strong in autumn as the regular Canterbury Bells. Generally they have one long summer of sparkling bloom then must be either lamented or replaced.
Lilac Blue Cup & Saucer Canterbury Bells.