Aquilegia 'Double Rubies'

Crowded sprays of fully double, deepest ruby red flowers. The spectacular blooms are on lovely long stems that are perfect for picking.

The blooms of Aquilegia 'Double Rubies' are just gorgeous, they face outward and are spurless, so look a bit like teeny tiny Dahlias.

Aquilegias have sweet flowers and delightfully lacy, fern like foliage. They make a beautiful foil for the fading spring flowering bulbs - as their fresh foliage begins growing in early spring, when the bulbs are going into senescence.

Aquilegia are suitable for growing in a lightly shaded to morning sun position. You could plant them in borders, as massed plantings, in beds or in containers.

After the initial flowering has finished, you can cut the stems back to the basal foliage and add some fertiliser to encourage more blooms. You can leave the last flowers of the season to form seed heads for future generations of plants, keeping in mind seedlings are unlikely to flower true to type as Aquilegias hybridise easily.

Aquilegias really are a cottage garden essential with sweet flowers and delightful lacy foliage. It is hard to show how really amazing they are, you need to try them for yourself.

The botanical name, Aquilegia stems from the Latin word for Eagle, as the spurs resemble Eagles talons.