Columbine

I love columbine season.  Over the winter they are secretly reseeding and planning surprises for the June garden.  

This was my biggest surprise.  I never planted this.  Of this I am certain because it is in the middle of the sun garden and I always plant columbine in part shade.  I have no idea where it came from.  Did it blow it from afar?  Was it a stowaway seed in an unrelated nursery purchase? When it finally bloomed and revealed its beauty to me I was amazed at its size. So incredulous that I had to take my ruler outside.  The blossoms are 4" across.

Can pink be any softer??  I love this one.  Though it is downward facing I think it must be because it likes looking at its companion, a small and prolific multi-petaled columbine whose name I do not know.

As they say in Real Estate, "Location, location, location.  I put my new columbine, "Songbird Cardinal," in front of the deep purple Tradescantia, (the Latin name is so much better than its common name, Spiderwort, isn't it?)

Hands down, this one gets this award for the sweetest columbine in the garden.  A friend (whose gardening friendship goes back 35 years!) gave me the plant last Fall and I had no idea what it would turn out to be. And here she is, one small and delicate blossom.  I hope she is planning surprises for me for next Spring.  Who knows were she will re-appear?