PlantFiles: Peach-Leaf Bellflower, Peach-Leaved Bellflower
Campanula persicifolia

This plant does have 3 disadvantages, which other commenters have also mentioned: (1) The flower stems fall over. (2) It is aggressive. (3) It requires deadheading. However, the blooms are an incredible clear blue, and the foliage is a rich green with an attractive shape. I rated my experience as Neutral due to the work involved to keep it attractive & in check, but I certainly have no problems growing it here in New Hampshire.

Carefree plant! I have these growing in 3 pots. The one w/ the most sun (pt sun at best) is very vigorous w/ a ton of cheerful looking flowers. The one in deep shade is more restrained & doesn't flower a whole lot.

Mine doesn't seem to self seed. I do sometimes prune to keep tidy & also pull out dead leaves that accumulate at the bottom. They seem to like a lot of water, will get wilty otherwise.

Looks great w/ sweet alyssum. Tho this year I'm trying it w/ bacopa since the alyssum gets leggy in that location.

I deadhead each individual bloom as it fades, using my thumbnail. The short (approx one inch) stem that leads to the individual flower is soft enough that my thumbnail easily cuts through it. The stalks will put out lateral stems which bloom profusely. Yes, sometimes the stalks need staking, but the glory of the full-flowering plant is worth the little bit of effort to deadhead and stake.

I have not always kept up with deadheading. . . . after several years I have peach-leaved bellflowers here and there throughout the garden!

I planted three of these last year in midsummer. They never bloomed. However, this year they began to bloom in late May and it looks like they will go on for quite awhile. The blooms are a beautiful color, they are large, and they are plentiful. The plants are tall and sturdier than they look, but I did have to put hoops around them since we had heavy rain and wind. I am really pleased with this selection and I'm trying to figure out where I can plant more.

The first year I had this plant in my new garden it provided welcome long lived color. But, it self-seeds so aggressively it pushes out other plants and became invasive.

And even worse, the tall flower spikes on the self-seeded plants fall over as soon as we have any wind or heavy rain.

I tried naturalizing it on a dry slope thinking the invasiveness would be a plus there, but it's ugly because of the tendency to fall over.

live in Ottawa Canada and really like this plant. I have white, blue and purple. They will rebloom if you deadhead. Not a problem overwintering and with no mulch.

On 2/19/07, I wintersowed seed of C. persicifolia alba, and it germinated profusely on 3/28/07. The seed was sown on a topping of gritty sand over regular potting soil in a qt-size recycled yogurt container within a baggy kept open for an inch at the top with a clothespin. The seed was not covered, as it needs light to germinate.

The seed came from Etravia via Alicewho's Wintersowing Seed Swap last December on the Wintersowing Forum.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled - can't wait to see this blooming with the rose 'Penelope'.

I liked the flower to a certain extent, but I found I was pulling it up.... once too often from self-seeding. I have other Campanulas that are not a nuisance. There are that many Campanulas, surely there is one for everyone. This one is a candidate to compete in the wild.

Bill in SE Newfoundland, Canada

Thriving well in zone 3b, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada!

The white form of this flower makes quite a statement in the garden in early summer with its tall spires of pure white bells. It is very hardy and can reseeds itself to the point of weediness. I grow mine with plants that can hold their own, like hostas, daylilies, nepeta sibirica etc. so it is not so much of a problem but still sometimes I have to pull out a few unwanted plants that escaped a little too far and threatened to overtake too much of the space. I started mine from seeds a few years ago.

This is a gorgeous companion plant for roses!

This grows wild/naturalized on my land, probably planted 40 or more years ago. It is a tad hyperactive, but so old fashioned lovely it can run amok with my blessing.

This is one of the flowers I look forward too the most each year. I had it planted next to a chamecyparis where it bloomed very happily for about 3 years in moist, well drained soil and morning sun. However, this year I only had one or two plants come up. Perhaps the shrub encroached too much or a varmint (chipmunk/rabbit-- notation above gave me pause for thought) ate them, as we have both. Anyway, I'll be getting more next spring - can't miss out on my Peach-leafed bellflowers!

This plant has performed beautifully for me in poor conditions. Planted 3 from pots in spring 2001--2 in deep full shade (dry) and one in full sun (average). All have spread to form large circular clumps. The shade plants are now each about 1.5 feet across and the sun plant is about 2.75 feet across. All bloomed nicely (3-5 flower stalks on the shade plants, 5-7 on the sun plant) in summer of '01 and '02--I watered only during the hottest part of the summer. Last summer ('03) the shade plants did not bloom, but this spring we had a lot of rain and all the plants have just gone nuts--the shade plants each have about ten stalks and the sun plant has twenty-seven!! Gorgeous! Far beyond what I would have anticipated from the description, the stalks are almost 4 feet tall on the sun plant.

In addition, the plant has spread. I did not expect this, so I think I pulled it as a weed for a couple of years, but this year it grew so fast with the rain that I recognized it and it is now growing in two areas 5-10 feet away from the original plants! Now, it may be that this is from my tossing the dead-headed flowers onto the ground (I'm not very tidy), but in any case, it did not require any elaborate saving and drying and so forth.

The flowers are beautiful and long-lasting, and they keep coming even when you don't dead head (I'm currently experimenting with dead-heading half the stalks to see whether it makes a significant difference). I highly recommend this plant--lovely even in the shade and spectacular in the sun. It's a real favorite of mine.
Incidentally it survived through some very harsh winters (we are zone 4 on the USDA map but in my experience, plants that aren't indicated for zone 3 do not survive the winter here).

This plant does very well in lower Westchester County, NY (region 6b), where it takes hard frosts with no mulch. It propagates very easily from division and is happy in in sun as well as considerable shade. I pinch faded flowers for new buds on the same stalk. I've read that shearing will result in new flower stalks. Delightful blue color for a long summer season! Only problem - another garden resident - either chipmunk or rabbit - favors the hardy leaves for grazing in colder months...

The white variety was longer lasting in my garden, but both it and the blue provided fine spikes of late-spring color. They got taller than expected, almost 5'. A cheerful plant!

These didn't bloom til their 2nd year, and one plant seems to be waiting for the third.

I tried twice 2 plants a year for 2 years in a row already but none of them survived the winter and came back the following spring. This is Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Grows in Heat Zones 9-1.

Peach-leaved bellflowers are perennial and hardy from zones 3-7. It forms a basal rosette of narrow leaves and sends up multiple 3-foot stems. Bell shaped flowers are produced all along the stems ranging in colors of lavender, blue, purple, and white. If spent blooms are pinched off it will continue to flower through the summer. It’s an excellent flower for cutting and will last a week or longer in a bouquet. Peach-leaved bellflowers will grow in full sun and are equally happy in partial shade. Warmer zones may want to give them afternoon shade but dense shade may cause flopping and they will need staking. They aren’t fussy about soil conditions but appreciate extra water when weather is hot and dry.