Botanical name: Polemonium caeruleum
Folk names: Greek valerian

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Pollen and nectar for a wide range of insects including beetles as well as bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies.

Flowers: May to July

Decorative merit: Pale blue, five-petalled, bell-shaped flowers with golden stamens carried in dense clusters, and starting as white buds. Narrow, rung-like leaflets up the stem give it its name. Basal clump of finely divided leaves. Grows up to 60cm. Deadhead to prolong flowering.

Where: Part-shade. Borders, wilder patches, beneath trees and at hedge and pond edges or try in a container.

Folklore: Native plant cultivated in gardens since before Roman times. Favoured by Margery Fish. Named from its ladder-like foliage and the Bible story of Jacob dreams of a ladder leading to heaven.

Phlox family

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