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Last month collected seeds from the columbine running amuck, including in containers. I don't know what these were, but perhaps or reverted to the regular (eastern) native red with yellow centers. Everything says 30 day chill, and are a year out to bloom. Well I did the chill etc. One of ten has popped up.
Today while picking for market saw bunches of tiny babies where seeds had dropped in neighboring containers. Of course no chill (wintering) for these sprouts, watered alot, mostly rain, soil varies.
Yes, I will let them grow a bit, thin, and put some in small pots. Sigh.

Hi Susan, I love Columbine. I've brought some in from mountain hunts and hikes and found some worth buying, they grow well at Tahoe.

Richard

Richard, what color are your native columbines? Our eastern ones are the red with yellow centers. One fond memory of living in the Colo rockies was the gorgeous blue with white center ones.

Susan, They sound the same, we were up there yesterday, didn't even look.

Right now, as we talk, way off in the distance I can see, wild horses eating carol's Russian Olive. They keep it trimmed as high as they can reach.

Richard

We had blue/white/yellow ones, salmon colored one, a dark burgundy one with snowy white inner petals, yellow ones, brownish/pinkish ones, and deep purple ones that had a double bloom. We lived close to the peak of Cresson Mountain in PA. They were a weed there. They spread rapidly, every year.the 4 years we were there, they were impossible to keep away.

All the varied purple, reds and blues I found for sale one place or another.

Hm. My garden must be missing some element that they like. I keep trying to get the wild red and yellow ones to grow but they fizzle out and don't come back. I need to get more seeds because I want a good spread of them to attract the early hummingbirds.

I do have a dark maroon/violet variety that are hanging on though slowly dwindling -- I think it's the leaf miners getting to them every year.

My experience is just like yours applestar. I sort of assumed it was because of my alkaline soil, but I looked it up just now and it says they actually LIKE that. So must be something else. But I haven't been able to get them established either. And yet hiking in the woods, I see them growing out of little cracks in the rock!

Columbine loves the mountain spread. We have none growing here in the high desert, don't know if it grows here naturally. I used to go into the mountains, before wifey found came, and fish the small lakes for days, the columbine would amaze me. The colors were mostly red, red orange, and yellow, in different combinations. I brought them back and they were glad I did. The Humming Birds seek them out.
I lived in a 10' X 12' hut, before I built the house, the hut is a little bigger now, even plumbing, friends stay in it at times now. How times change. No one lived in this valley than. I was teaching skiing, wifey came from Australia to see America and was in my class.

Oh! Columbine. I love columbine, it came to our place to stay, when I touch the flower,, feel the plant, it knows I'm there, it gets stronger, grows better, when I touch it.
Richard