The Rural Voice, 1995-05, Page 51Gardening
flowers are hood -like or helmeted
with small peaks in front and are
crowded onto tall spikes like
delphiniums. They are coloured
from the dark almost purple and a
pure white to a lovely delicate
mixture of white tickled with blue.
They enjoy partial shade but will do
well in full sun if the soil is moist.
Rich, moist, well drained soil is a
requirement. They range from four
to six feet in height and they are
known to have weak stems, so
staking is recommended. I have a
stake next to mine but I use it more
to mark the site. The monkshood is
planted in our garden on the west
side of the lilac bush for protection
from cold east winds and the north
wind is broken by a rail fence. It
seems to withstand our foul fall
weather quite nicely.
I let the flowers go to seed every
year and search vainly for new
plants each spring. None yet.
Monkshood, like delphiniums, hate
to be moved, yet Patrick Lima in
his book Perennial Garden
comments on how easily a clump
will fall apart when pried from the
ground in the spring. Stems end in
little knobby tubers that can be
further eased by hand.
My clump has developed into a
good size and in order to get more
plants I may have to resort to
division. Sometimes when you
have a good specimen you hate to
tamper with it until it is too late.
Overcrowding or lack of good
humus can do more damage than
dividing the clump. So I will bite
the bullet and divide the monks-
hood this month. Maybe I will
have so many lovely little tubers
there will be a handful to spare at
the annual garden party mid-May.
In the meantime I will continue to
nurse this lovely little monkshood
that has surfaced and hopefully we
will see some showy white
blossoms that will complement my
robust blue wolfsbane.0
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger raises two
children, and is a skilled cook and
gardener.
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MAY 1995 47