Garden Felix
BALLOON flowers are clump forming perennials and members of the Bellflower family, although the blooms do not resemble bells.
Instead, they have puffy, balloon like buds that swell to produce a star shaped flower.
This easy grower, which self sows their seed, blooms all summer long with intense blue/violet flowers, but, there are also cultivars which have white and pink blooms.
Balloon flowers make excellent plants for border gardens or rock gardens and the blooms attract pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, thanks to their wide-open petals.
These perennials are low maintenance plants and are quite pest and disease resistant.
You will get additional flowers, if you plant in full sun, with at least six hours of sunlight daily.
However, they will be fine in part shade and might actually prefer some shade from where the afternoon sun is hot, especially here on the Costa Blanca South.
Balloon flowers prefer rich, loamy soil, that has good drainage. They don’t grow well in dense soil, such as clay.
Keep the soil consistently moist, but not soggy. Once established, they like a moderate amount of moisture in the soil and can tolerate short periods of drought.
Balloon flowers don’t need supplemental feeding, if you have rich soil. A layer of compost in the autumn can help replenish energy during the growing season.
If you have poor soil, use an all-purpose, slow release fertiliser in early spring. Pruning isn’t necessary, although you can do so for appearance purposes.
To achieve a stockier plant, you can cut back tall stems, by about half in the late spring, helping prevent plants from flopping over.
Also, dead-heading plants will keep them looking good and in continuous bloom. Don’t remove the whole stem, just the dead flowers, as the remaining buds on the stem will continue to open.
Balloon flowers are fairly pest and disease free, however, they are very attractive to slugs and snails and suseptical to crown and root root.
