More Delphiniums

Delphinium 'Dusky Maiden' Blooming in my garden now

Closer view of 'Dusky Maiden'

'Dusky Maiden' closeup

Delphinium 'Royal Aspirations' closeup

   I have previously posted about Dowdeswell's Delphiniums and as I noted in that previous entry, all of the delphiniums I grow are from Dowdeswell's seed strains.  Earlier this summer I purchased three different of these delphiniums from Annie's Annuals--'Dusky Maidens',  'Royal Aspirations' and 'Sweethearts'.  Both 'Dusky Maidens' and 'Sweethearts' are pinkish, the difference between them being that 'Dusky Maidens' is supposed to have a brown bee while 'Sweethearts' is supposed to have a white bee.  The bee is that center part of each individual flower that you can see in the two closeup pictures above.  Since these are seed strains, however, and not clones, there is some variation between the plants and, as you can see from the first two pictures above one of my 'Dusky Maidens' has a white bee.  That is ok by me since the flower is still beautiful.  The third picture above shows a closeup of what 'Dusky Maidens' is supposed to look like.
     The blooms in these pictures are coming from the second flush of bloom that you can get on these delphiniums by cutting them back after they have bloomed the first time.  The bloom in the first picture is standing up all by itself with no staking at the moment.  This is not really a good practice since there are many things that could cause the stalk to flop over, but at this time of the year I have less energy for staking than I did earlier.
     I like these pink delphiniums very much--their color is a nice shade of pink with overtones of blue.  I also, of course, like the blue delphiniums.  Blue is what delphiniums do best and the blues in 'Royal Aspirations', as you can see from the closeup, are fine indeed.  Whenever my delphiniums are in full bloom I think maybe I should just plant nothing but delphiniums in my garden.