Celebrating the gorgeous Canterbury Bells
I completely fell in love with Canterbury Bells after growing them for the first time last year and now they are one of my most favourite plants for cutting and I think more people should grow them! I convinced Ben to stock the seeds which is fabulous and this year its part of the biennial bundle so hopefully many of you will give it a go. 
Such a tall statement plant in the garden at this time of year and a classic cottage garden plant. You could grow it specifically in a cutting garden or it would just make a brilliant garden plant too. It has tall stems of beautiful bell shaped flowers in shades of pink, purple, blue and white. You can get a double form but I much prefer the single form and so do the bees, you can hear them humming away inside each flower. 
In the first year after sowing you get a nice neat rosette of bright green leaves and then the tall stems develop from April onwards and they start flowering in early June. Almost a year after sowing but well worth the wait. The photo below shows the neat rosette in mid-March.
You will need to give them some support as they can get quite big, I’ve put some bamboo canes up and intertwined each plant with some jute twine, in a couple of layers as they grow. 
I only grew a few plants last year and they were all a blue or lilac so hoping for a mix of colours this year. They can send up one big tall stem which can be useful if you want some statement stems or you can pinch then out so that they send out lots of shorter stems, sometimes these are easier to incorporate into smaller arrangements or have a mix of both which is what I have this year. Once you have picked the main big stem you will get lots more flower shoots and this can really prolong its flowering time. I was still picking them till the end of July last year. But another really big plus is their vase life, at least two weeks, I would say to pick them when the top flowers just starts to open and then the other ones will open too down the stem. Here they are growing next to, and mingling with, the autumn sown Cornflowers and Corncockles. 
I sowed mine in early June last year, they are tiny seeds and can be slow to get growing. I sowed into a seed tray and I pricked them out into 9cm pots in July. If you have room plant them out once they are well rooted, I ended up potting mine on into 11cm pots and planted them after I had cleared some of the annuals in September. I’m always juggling for space. They look nice and neat and tidy too all winter, they start flowering at the beginning of June. A huge plus is they don’t seem to be bothered at all by slugs, well they haven’t so far with me! Here is the first pickings cut on the 8th June.
You have to clear the stems of side shoots and also then get a small posy of the flowers on shorter stems.
They seem to time their first flush of flowering in June with the autumn sown Cornflowers, Corncockle, Orlaya, Hesperis purple, Feverfew, Alchemilla mollis and Roses which all make perfect companions.
Here with Cornflowers ‘Black Ball’ and ‘Mauve Ball’ and Corncockle.
The white and pale pink forms look fabulous with other white flowers in my garden in June. Corncockle ‘Bianca’, Silene vulgaris, Sanguisorba ‘Burr Blanc’ and Echium ‘White Bedder’.
They took a bit of a back seat to my favourite rose, Rosa ‘Munstead Wood’, also with Ranunculus, Corncockle, Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, Sweet William ‘Nigricans’ and the bright pink of Knautia macedonica.
A bit of fizz from Alchemilla mollis with the vibrant dark blue forms, with Corncockle ‘Bianca’, Orlaya grandiflora and Echium ‘White Bedder’.
The double flowered Feverfew that seeds around my garden was also a good companion, with more Corncockle and Cornflowers!
Finally a flashback to one of my favourite posies last year, when I picked a bunch of sideshoots in July and combined it with Cosmos ‘Apricotta’, Amberboa muricata and Phlox ‘Creme Brulee’.
Just to show the long vase life, I dismantled the first two posies I did in June and the Canterbury bells were still looking fabulous 10 days later and still going strong.
A really hope that I have tempted you to grow this fabulous flower, it really is the star of the June garden. Pop Canterbury Bells into your basket or go for the Biennial bundle which has 10% off and grow lots of other great flowers that will see you with armfuls of cutflowers from May until July. If you want to know more about the bundle see my blog post here. Also Higgledy Gemma (Colour Wheel Garden) has written a blog about why she loves biennials so much, link to it here. She has also been doing a sow-along to show you how she sows here biennial seeds, they can all be found on her Instagram page.
Higgledy Anne
(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)