Campanula 'VIKING' bellflower

Arie Blom is a Dutch perennial breeder primarily renowned for coneflowers, but sometimes he introduces a perennial from another species. This time it is a bellflower called Viking. This beautiful cultivar is a result of multiple crosses between campanula hybrids, so no one can trace the parent species anymore. It bears large, 4-5 cm long, light purple, bell-shaped flowers which are star-shaped open wide. They are not nodding but facing outwards. They appear atop about 40 cm tall, upright stems.

Flowering begins from June or July and you can prolong it by removing spent flowers. True, it is quite a lot of work, and the plant produces milk, so allergy sufferers should be careful when handling it. As soon as the bunch starts to look unsightly, cut it 3 cm above the ground and within a month it will re-emerge into a fresh new tuft with more flowers for late summer and the last nice days of autumn. Deciduous leaves are fresh green and narrowly ovate with long petioles.

Viking bellflower forms compact clumps and is sterile (it does not produce viable seeds) so it will not weed around the rest of your garden. Bellflowers like fertile, well-drained but evenly moist soil of almost any pH but prefer neutral to alkaline soils. Make sure to provide enough nutrients for profuse flowering. They can be grown in full sun (never let it dry out completely) or part shade. Hardy to min. -29 °C (USDA zone 3).

Last update 16-06-2023