CAMPANULA CARPATICA 'CLIPS' - BLUE

This plant has been flowering since I bought it many weeks ago.  It grows on a long narrow bed together with other relatively low-growing perennials and a row of Arthur Bell yellow roses.  To keep them flowering, the trick is, as all gardeners know, to keep dead-heading (nipping off the dead heads of flowers) as soon as you spot them, if you can.  It's not always easy with plants that flower prolifically but it works wonders in prolonging the flowering season.  In the below photograph you can see two or three 'dead heads' waiting to be nipped off. 

Campanula carpatica 'Clips' -  Blue

I have no idea why Campanula carpatica 'Clips' Blue has been given that name but the colour is lovely and just like the photograph.  I've chosen to grow alternating white and blue flowering plants along with the yellow roses.  Of course, they don't all flower at once and as they are all low growing (though some push up taller flower spikes from a mound of leaves) they don't compete with the roses. 



The label says that 'Clips' Blue (there is a white version) is a compact clump-forming perennial producing branching stems of lavender-blue, bell-shaped flowers, in abundance.  It is suitable for rockeries, borders, walls, banks, paving, gravel gardens, containers and pots.  It flowers mid to late summer and achieves a height of 20cm (8in) and spread of 30cm (12in).  It likes full sun or partial shade in moist but well-drained soil. 



I don't know why they say that the plant has branching stems as the stems seem very short and stumpy to me!