Campanula Species, Creeping Bellflower, June Bell, Korean Bellflower, Rampion Bellflower

This lovely wildflower planted itself along my fenceline. As it has proliferated, I've enjoyed its flowers with no need for me to care fo...Read Morer it. It hasn't invaded my lawn (as other plants have done) and simply does the job of prettying up my otherwise homely fence. After reading here, I'd say don't plant it near your intended garden unless you can plan for succession blooming, but for my yard, this is a perfect carefree beauty..

While generally invasive I have found my dry, sandy, highly acidic soil keeps it check - this year I actually had a lot of it die off of ...Read Moreits own accord.

I can see why many people hate this plant, but here in Fargo, ND it is not entirely unwelcome. Many people have it in perennial beds and ...Read Moresuffer no ill consequence. Perhaps our winters are just too severe for it. While it does grow wild I wouldn't consider it invasive here as establish lawns and gardens seem to have no problems keeping it at bay. It will pop up where soil has been disturbed.

In my Colorado neighborhood we call this plant The Bane of Old Town. It grows early and everywhere, pushes through thick layers of mulch,...Read More and chokes out (almost) every other plant, including grass in your lawn. I am a natural gardener and am battling it with tough, early growing, bush-forming perennials and constant pulling. Do NOT let it seed. For example, I now have grown a big bush of Garden Sage that's created a Campanula-free zone. Sedum groundcovers and sweet woodruff are also making thick mats that keep it out. Yarrow pops up thick and early too to beat it. And I let my Centaura Montana sprout up everywhere to out-compete the Campanula. Adding this year to my most Campanula-choked spot: invasive Peppermint!

Many, possibly, most, people who are battling this heinous weed are only digging up and removing the thin, delicate rhizomes that run sha...Read Morellowly underground and link up the mass of what appear to be individual plants. These very thin rhizomes are actually connected to white, carrot-like roots that are very deeply buried. Successfully eradication depends on digging deeply enough to remove the main, carrot-like roots.

No knowledgeable gardener would ever intentionally grow this species, nor pass it along to anyone else.

I have been in my new garden for three years. The first year I had a few of this plant, and was charmed, the second year I started pullin...Read Moreg it out because it was increasing too much. This year it is rampant and threatening other plants. It is growing in great clumps. I am sorry that I did not control it earlier. I am trying to control it now by digging it out, which worked with lily of the valley, but this is more relentless.

I wold not advise allowing this plant to get out of control. The only way to do that, I think, is not to plant it or put it in a container.

We bought this house in 2011 and as soon as the ground was thawed in spring 2012 I started battle with this demon. I am losing. There'...Read Mores just always MORE! I could weep. That said, I had no idea what it was just that there was an obnoxious amount of it every spring and I am always removing it so that I can build and maintain gardens. This year I finally let some flower and saw what I was dealing with. The horror...the horror... Its in the vegetable patch, flower beds, lawn fence lines...it comes out from under the sun porch and deck.. Its just EVERYWHERE and I can't seem to reduce it by hand. I thought ox eye daisies and buttercup were bad but this is a whole new level.

I will let others speak of the evil nature of this species.
I have been half-heartedly trying to control these things for a couple...Read More of years.
However, this year, I have mounted an all-out offensive against them.
1. Digging is effective if you can dig, but you must carefully sift every cubic inch of dirt and get EVERY SINGLE ROOT THREAD. I had a small bed in which it was growing that was bordered by 6 feet of concrete. I dug out to about 12 inches and got every single little turnip and root thread. No regrowth after 4 years.
2. When digging is not an option. I have a lot of these buggers growing around mature trees, so I can't dig. Here's my plan for the "no dig" area: Scorched earth and starvation.

First, scorch. Find something that will kill off the above-ground portions. Here's the scoop: These plants grow from a tuber. The tuber stores energy from the sun. Every spec of green that shows its face to the sun is potentially sending energy back to this tuber. Allowing the plant to generate greenery so that you can then slather it with some chemical gives that tuber time to store energy. And killing the green part doesn't kill the tuber.

Glyphosphate: minimally effective. Some parts of some leaves turned brown. And, these plants develop a resistance to glyphosphate. What doesn't die becomes resistant.

Dicamba: minimally effective. It sort of curled the leaves, but they were still green and feeding that tuber. Also, dicamba is toxic to conifers and can be absorbed through the soil, so I don't want to apply it around my spruce trees, or anywhere near the roots of other plants I want to keep. An interesting thing that I noticed about post-treatment regrowth is that the new leaves were not broad. Dicamba is designed for broad-leaf plants, and these little viruses seemed to be adapting to be less broad-leafed. It also makes identifying the regrown harder.

Imazapic (found in Round-Up Extended Control): JACKPOT!! Crispy death to all greenery. However, don't be fooled; just the tops are killed, so at least there is no more food going to the Borg Queen. Also, this kills everything else, too. This is not a bad thing. With everything else dead, you can easily see regrowth.

Scorched earth phase complete. Now on to the starvation part:

This morning, I put the kettle on. I took a kettle of boiling water out to the hive. Every little spec of regrowth I saw, I poured boiling water on. Cooks those little suckers right up. They turn bright green and smell like spinach.

Learn what the regrowth looks like. This is essential. The leaves can be very tiny, clustered together. You have to get right down there on the ground to see them. There are also plants whose above-ground growth was not completely killed. The leaf stems will be left, all radiating from a central point, laying right on the ground. Often, with an established above-ground portion, there is a little woody knob from which the leaves grow.

Boil all of these things at once. You don't need a lot of water, just a thin stream right on the leaves.

My strategy is to force the tuber to keep putting up new growth, and then ruthlessly kill that new growth every time I see it. Don't let the leaves make food for the tuber, and the tuber will eventually run out of stores.

Basically, you must be prepared to kill everything else in order to get rid of this thing. First, kill off the green so that no food can go back to the tuber, then quickly kill off all new growth.

Crossing my fingers. I'm expecting this to take a few summers.

I might buy one of those Shark steam cleaners.

Those of you who rate it as Neutral and are charmed by its prettiness will very soon be overwhelmed by its invasive an uncontrollable nat...Read Moreure. Kill it. Use harsh chemicals. Do whatever you have to do or it will completely take over your garden, lawn, and neighborhood. You cannot dig it out. Other plants will not control it. It will take over. Don't be fooled. Just kill it wherever and whenever you can. And DO NOT GIVE IT AWAY!

In North America, this is an insidious weed, one whose true nature takes several years to reveal itself. I would never plant this in any ...Read Moresituation, nor would I give it to my worst enemy.

I have found that, with care and persistence, it can be controlled with 2% glyphosate, most effective when applied in late spring (early May in Boston) just before it sends up its flower scapes---that's when it has the most leafy basal foliage to take up the herbicide. Timing is CRITICAL for success---the basal foliage disappears once it starts sending up its flower stalks. Eradicating it may require repeated applications over several successive years---don't be too hasty in planting another perennial in the same spot. For success, you'll have to sacrifice any other perennials which it has embraced.

In the USA, most plants and seeds sold and traded as various Adenophora species are actually Campanula rapunculoides. Let the buyer beware! Here is how to tell the two apart when in flower: http://www.robsplants.com/plants/adenophora.php
Most Adenophora species bear their flowers in a (branched) panicle. Creeping bellflower bears its flowers in a one-sided raceme (with one major stem).

This may enter gardens as a hitchhiker on perennial divisions from another garden. Seed can also be carried by the wind.

As several people have noted, digging is an ineffective means of control. I've known many who've tried to eradicate it by digging, and no one who's succeeded. Early in my gardening career I deeply dug the same plant every week for most of a summer. I have no doubt it's still there.

A single plant can produce up to 15,000 seeds a season. The seeds are small and lightweight and equipped with wings for transport on the wind. Whole neighborhoods are swiftly colonized this way.

In North America, this species has naturalized in 39 states and 10 provinces. It's not only a garden thug, it invades and impoverishes natural areas over a wide range of climates:

http://wimastergardener.org/?q=CreepingBellflower
http://www.uaf.edu/files/ces/publications-db/catalog/anr/FGV...
[HYPERLINK@www.abinvasives.ca]
http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/diagnose/weed/broadleaf/...

It's been designated a restricted invasive plant in Wisconsin, and its planting is legally restricted.

Note: Creeping bellflower is Campanula rapunculoides. Rampion (as in the story of Rapunzel) is Campanula rapunculus, a different (biennial) species which has not been reported as invasive in the USA. As the botanical names suggest---"rapunculoides" means "that looks like rampion"---they are similar in appearance. Both have edible fleshy white taproots.

I bought this plant at a nursery. It was pretty, but it is monster in disguise. It is highly invasive. I spend most of my time in my pere...Read Morennial beds doing battle with this plant. It spreads by seed and underground. It overwhelms other plants and kills them. I have had it for four years. Where there were once three plants there are now hundreds. There is no way to get rid of it once it takes hold. If you value your perennials you will not buy this plant and put it in your garden. It was a huge mistake that I regret every summer.

found it easy to control and what a delightful show of blue! When given good soil it is a majestic tall plant.

I hate this plant! It is so invasive I have yet to find a way to get rid of it. I have pulled it, dug it and removed roots 2 feet down wh...Read Moreen small and big and still it grows back. I have tried weed killers and that hasn't worked. It is spreading throughout my yard. I would never give this plant to anyone.

Don't do it! I moved into this house 6 years ago and didn't have much time for yard work, and the bellflowers on the side of the house l...Read Moreooked nice (and harmless). 2 years ago I finished all the inside work (remodelling kitchen, bathroom, stripping and staining woodwork, etc) and was finally able to do more than just a quick mow. During my quick mows, I did see the bellflower was spreading along the fence, but I figured I could deal with them later. Of course "later" I found this bellflower all over my entire yard, even jumped the sidewalk by growing in the crack, and is now in both neighbors yards! I'm digging up roots the size of carrots, but after 2 years work, I'm MAYBE a little better off than when I started, but just barely. How hard it is to kill? The first 4 years here, I raked all our leaves from a HUGE elm tree into a 7 x 7 chicken wire fence and let it SLOWLY compost (whole leaves that I didn't turn over). It got maybe 3 or 4 feet deep, with matting that would rot most perennials if you didn't get it off quickly enough in spring. When I finally took it all out to spread around the yard, under that 7 x 7 area I noticed what I guess would be called blanched bellflowers that then eventually started to GROW AGAIN! Hard to smother, hard to pull, even hard to poison (yes, I finally gave in and tried chemicals, but even round up didn't work). Now I notice and loath this plant all over our neighborhood. Especially up and down alleys. It's easy enough to harass it and pull it out of the ground since the tap root doesn't come out, but just like when I try to push our boxer out of my way, they come back twice as strong. :)

i have this plant growing all over the place---and, have no idea where it came from. growing in peonies, bee balm, coneflowers, and on an...Read Mored on. i have been pulling this invasive plant for years now. it just keeps returning.

in our dry Denver garden this bellflower wanders a bit but only finds success in a few areas — under a pine tree and in a large iris be...Read Mored; it is a little scraggly, but pleasant to look at when clumped; only mildly aggressive and doesn't take away as much as it gives

Whoops! My mother in law gave me a few plants and I put them in my little 5 x 20 foot bed... and thought they were a veronica type. But n...Read Moreooooooo, they came up with these beautiful bell flowers and at first I was happy, then I got on here and a) identified them and b) read these horror stories! Thankfully they have only been in the ground about 6 weeks and they are coming out today and going into a POT. They are too pretty to just throw out and I don't mind deadheading. I just hope that 6 weeks is not enough time for the roots to get spunky.

This pretty-yet-evil plant sat quietly in my zone 3 garden for about 5 years while secretly organizing an underground army which it relea...Read Moresed this spring. It is now all through my perennial bed, and I saw it in many lawns as I walked around town today. I spent hours yesterday trying to dig out its long white tubers from among all the plants, and imagine it will take many more hours this summer. If you rototill, it will just enable it to spread even further and faster by cutting the roots into tiny soldiers, multiplying like crazy. I will be painting Round-up or some other glyphosate-containing variation on leaves I can't dig out. Do not let this plant fool you.

O.M.G. I've never encountered anything like this. The comments that refer to it as the "cancer of the garden", "aliens", and nightmares a...Read Morere all dead on. I've dealt with invasives with success in the past, using organic methods, even, but this beast cannot be bested. Pull one plant, and two will grow in its place- literally.
And, yes, how is it that a vendor actually has this plant for sale here? Yikes. Don't buy it, don't take it for free, build a moat.

Very invasive and hard to completely kill off.

A friend of mine went for a walk to take a break from work. She came back with a handful of "pretty blue flowers". I screamed, "Bluebe...Read Morells!" Anyway I've completely dug spots out of our garden, going down 2 feet, thrown away all the dirt, put in new and next year they're back happy as can be. The roots are like super carrots that go down to China! ( I have heard they're edible.) Bad stuff!

I have recently renovated a small garden in Seattle that had been ignored for a number of years. It was my introduction to C. rapunculoi...Read Moredes which had spread to cover large areas of the beds. This garden has good, loose soil which certainly agrees with this invasive. It spreads with stolons and develops carrot-sized or larger tubers. I have dug out hundreds and must re-weed on a weekly basis to cull resprouts. In short, it is a very adaptable, aggressive invasive that requires meticulous removal efforts to defeat. Sharing this plant with anyone would be cruel indeed and your reward for enjoying its small bellflowers will be a future garden devoted to it. Eradicate if at all possible.

This is a horrible plant. I have tried and tried to get rid of it. Goutweed was easy in comparison. Please do not plant it. You will regret it.

Digging, Digging, digging, with hopes it will work. I laughed so hard reading the previous posts. It's awful. yes, dreams. It wears on me...Read More the work that I have to do. I saw one Alaska gardeners site that said the the weed killer Roundup will kill but you have to carefully apply it to the plant, and I'm not sure how, maybe with a paint brush. But I've been digging yesterday and last fall, and about 2 weeks ago. The rhizomes look like white longish raddishes or carrots and they are deep and then when you finally pull, you think that maybe the tip of it is still way down there. I have been sifting through my fingers even the tiniest hair-like roots. It's great when you can carefully keep the rhizomes together. it is tedious and gentle work, if you want to get it all, but one site I have says that you just can't get it all and they will come back. At this point, i'm determined. I have one area that they still thrive, densely, and I think I'll just carefully cut the flower stalk and dispose of them before they can seed out. not sure. Okay, good luck everybody, I'm in Juneau, Alaska, and they're here. They call them the Purple Monster.

I planted 3 small plants in a 25'X12' bed 8 years ago and it has taken over at least 70% of the flower bed!

I too thought this was a lovely, tall flower. That is, until I realized, all too late, just how invasive this flower is. I spent the be...Read Moretter part of last week shovelling and screening an area to remove any and all of its root system. This plant loves to spread via this manner. I will let everyone know just how effective this method is next spring. I think its also known as adenophora liliifolia too or false campanula.

This plant is somewhat invasive. It will overtake less vigorous neighbors and the roots are easily transplanted. All the same, a beautif...Read Moreul plant that performs well. It is probably best kept as a container plant.

This plant is EVIL... it chokes out everything in it's path. I have a large native shade garden, and have been selectively weeding it out...Read More weekly for 3 years with little success. The bellflower invaded from neighbours seed (and presumably some resistant rhysomes) shortly after the beds were established. To my amazement... the round-up used to prep the site didn't kill the root stock... it only freed it from competition.

PLEASE... PLEASE... PLEASE... DON'T INTRODUCE THIS MENACE TO YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD. There are many resiliant and longer-flowering alternatives to use in your garden.

This has to be one of the most persistent, horrible weeds out there. I spent several hours with three friends trying to clear it from a f...Read Moreairly small area this afternoon, where it had become happily established, choking out everything else. It is extremely difficult to dig out, forming what I call "the mother ship," a big tuberous root mass that seems to store infinite energy to send out new leaves, no matter how many times you dig out what's above ground. I have one patch I've been religiously de-leafing for 10 years with no luck killing it. It may trick you with its pretty purple flowers, but if this monster ever makes it into your yard and you have any other plants you want to grow, you will be very, very sorry! You will forever have nightmares of purple flowers. The fact that some people grow this ON PURPOSE, and that there is actually a VENDOR of it listed on this page, is beyond belief.

This plant often "volunteers" in weedy places in Seattle. I suspect it of being an invasive exotic with potential to overrun native wildf...Read Morelowers and would never plant it.

Despite its bad habits, I'm enticed by its beauty & the constant buzzing of critters. It's great as a cutting flower. I often give them...Read More as gifts in bouquets. I know that I shouldn't grow it, and yet I can't get myself to completely give it up... Native bees feed on its pollen. Doesn't that count for something?

When I was about 13, I found mine growing out of a crack of pavement. It was a single stem of 6-8 blossoms leaping from a tiny rosette. It was adorable and slated for the weed whacker or the next parallel park job. I'd seen true bellflowers in my Heidi book, and I instantly wanted it in my garden. This was no hosta or Virginia bluebell. This was the real McCoy.

There were no other plants around to ask someone exactly what kind it was or where it came from. I had no idea what I was getting into! After it started spreading, I got a clue about the work in my future, but I didn't identify it until I joined DG last yr!

I strongly disagree about this being a plant for lazy gardeners. Non-native invasive species should either not be cultivated or kept on a tight leash. They need responsible folks who will take the time to keep them in check. I have to dead head this plant immediately after it blooms. (...& it often blooms twice: late June & early August!) Every year, I throw away about half of the plants that spread by root or the few seeds I missed.

I will always keep it in a planter to minimize the root spreading. It's so hard to kill that it can freeze solid without worry, so who cares if it's outside all year in a box? I don't want a patch of hundreds for a seasonal display. I just want to remember that little stem shooting up out of the pavement.

We call it "cancer of the garden" in the Rocky Mountain area.

If I never saw this plant again I would be happy. Here in the Champain Valley of Vermont it is worse than mint with a tap root that can b...Read Moree a foot long. As a professional gardener I spend more time trying to eradicate this plant than any other by organic means. I love plants, gardening is my passion and my job, but I do not like Adenophora Liliifolia.

Medium 18" - Plant 12" apart. Zone 3-8 Purple-blue nodding flower bells from late summer into the fall. Light green foliage with dark ste...Read Morems. Chinese native. Spreads rapidly.

Creeping Bellflower, Rampion Bellflower, June Bell Campanula rapunculoides is Naturalized in Texas and other States.

This plant was in the garden when we bought our house a year ago. I love blue flowers, and bumblebees love it too. It blooms at the same ...Read Moretime as, and gives a nice contrast to, orange daylilies (ditch lilies, not anything you'd spend money on) which were also here -- but everything everyone has said about its invasiveness and refusal to be rooted out of the garden is absolutely true. It actually grew up through a small hosta and is crowding into everything in a raised bed. I plan to keep weeding it, add mulch, and plant wildflower perennials like yarrow and Joe Pye weed to this particular area of the garden, so we'll see what a little competition will do.

It takes over flower beds and lawns. The more you pull it, the more it grows. It has breached 12 layers of newsprint (sheet mulch) in my ...Read Moreyard. If you have the time to dig up all the tubers (the white carrots), you can make a dent in it. I rototilled along our fence where it was thick, and it has come in strong right next to the strip I tilled (meaning it has invaded the lawn).

Mine started blooming in late Winter. I'm in a zone 9b.

We just dug some of this out of the ditch across from our neighbor's house and planted it. I have a wildflower garden that I put all of ...Read Moremy 'free' plants in that we find in the woods, along the roadside, etc. We'll see how it does in a 'controlled' environment. I appreciate the 'invasive' warning. I'll keep an eye on it.

This plant is terribly invasive. It was growing in a corner of my yard when I moved here 7 years ago, and it has spread about 6 feet outw...Read Moreard since then, in spite of my weeding it out. Tonight I kept digging at roots until I found some large tap roots at the center. I felt like a hero burning Dracula's casket. I know this isn't the end, though. There are more evil spawn out there to conquer.

Where I live In Colorado, as in most of western & north central US (and parts of Canada), this plant is considered an invasive weed. Yes...Read More, I do believe it is beautiful, and yes, it is very easy to grow. A quick Google search will reveal a lot. Unless you live in Europe, I encourage you to research more about this plant before allowing it to enter your life.

The member who said these were invasive was right - they can be, unless moved when young. I generally dig up the young plants in early s...Read Morepring when I'm doing my first weeding of the season. Pot them up and take the babies to our annual plant sale or plant them elsewhere. Still, I occasionally still get them popping up where they're not wanted. But the flowers are beautiful and long lasting - so they're worth the bother.

They like partial to full sun and moist but well drained soil. I've seen mine wilt during droughts, so keep watered if you are getting less than average rainfall. Wet conditions (as we had this year) don't seem to bother them.

I enjoy this flower's constant bloom, and it fills in where I have holes.

I like this plant, and have never had any trouble with it choking out other plants. It's been in my garden for 2-3 years now. I live in z...Read Moreone 5. Maybe after it's been in my garden longer it will become invasive, and I will have to get rid of it, but so far, so good!

I found Creeping Bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) growing wild in a meadow near Cortland NY this week (August 2004). I used the fiel...Read Mored guide by Peterson & McKenny – A Field Guide to Wildflowers to id it since it was new to me. The field guide says the style is long, straight, and white. In the flowers I saw and the photos on this website show a purple or lavendar colored style, definitely not white. Is Peterson wrong or is the purple-colored style a different variety?

It's considered a weed here in zone 6 NY. I have been battling it since I moved here 18 years ago and don't believe I will ever get it o...Read Moreut of the hedge. It is included in the R.T. Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers as "alien" and it always reminds me of the movie ALIEN -- that one was hard to kill, too.

This is the perfect plant for the lazy gardener. Put this in your yard and soon you won't have to look after any other plants. If it's ...Read Morethis invasive in zone 3, imagine what it can do for you in a warmer zone. It's a magic plant, coming up everywhere and returning where you thought you had killed it all. This plant is considered a weed of the worst kind by gardeners in my area.

This plant is invasive for those with a small plot of land! Here in New Hampshire USA, it blooms for months! In fact, it even survives ...Read Moreseveral frosts! I highly recommend it for those who have a large area and do not want a lot of upkeep! It takes care of itself and reseeds splendidly!

It grows in both poor soil or good soil I have never watered any of them, never weeded them and they always look great! For ten years they have grown here without protection from the harsh winds on a cliff!

These are almost impossible to get rid of. They have taproots, and Roundup acts like Miracle Gro! I saw them at a plant nursery recently ...Read Moreand couldn't believe people PAY for them!

Starting in mid spring, flowers appear on thin stalks. Lavender and bell-shaped, with 5 pointed bracts, with the majority of petals on on...Read Moree side of the plant's stalk.

Leaves are narrow, toothed. Lower leaves wider and heart-shaped.

This plant can be invasive; plant where it will not crowd other plants.

Background: A common name for Creeping Bellflower in Europe is Rampion, which comes from the plant's Latin name. Rampion figures prominently in Old World fairy tales.

Rapunzel is named after the flower, and her exile to the tower is a witch's punishment to the girl's father, who stole rampion from her magic garden to help his wife in childbirth. In another story, a maid who digs up a rampion plant discovers a staircase that leads to a magnificent underground palace.