Aquilegia

The classic cottage-garden columbine of Europe, also called granny's bonnet - an airy clump-forming perennial whose ferny blue-green foliage carries nodding, intricately spurred flowers (classically blue-violet, but freely variable in colour and form) in late spring. Native across Europe (POWO, Kew), it is a quintessential cottage plant that self-seeds prolifically and hybridises freely, so it pops up everywhere and named forms rarely come true from seed. It is fairly short-lived - a few years per plant - and leans on that self-sowing to persist. Every part is toxic if eaten, the seeds and roots most of all, so it is decorative only. RHS holds it fully hardy (H7) and has given several Aquilegia vulgaris forms the Award of Garden Merit.

A delicate native perennial with red and yellow nodding spring flowers that draw hummingbirds and early pollinators.