General Culture:

Easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. Tolerates wide range of soils except heavy, poorly drained ones. Prefers rich, moist soils with light to moderate shade. Remove flowering stems after bloom to encourage additional bloom. Keep soils uniformly moist after bloom to prolong attractive foliage appearance. When foliage depreciates, plants may be cut to the ground. This cultivar may be purchased as seed, generally comes true from seed and may reseed in the garden under optimum growing conditions. However, different varieties of columbine may cross-pollinate with the resulting seed being at variance from either or both parents.

Noteworthy Characteristics:

'Rotstern' is a bushy, clump-forming columbine that typically grows 18-24" tall and features large, upward facing, long-spurred, primarily two-tone flowers with star-like, creamy white corollas (5 petals) and with crimson red sepals and spurs. Bushy yellow stamens add a third color. Blooms in spring. Triternate, almost fern-like, basal green foliage with a bluish tinge is somewhat suggestive of meadow rue (Thalictrum). 'Rotstern' (often translated by nurseries into English as 'Red Star' or 'Crimson Star') is frequently sold as a cultivar of A. caerulea, but may have more complex parentage and is also sometimes sold as a hybrid (often with an "x cultorum" or "x hybridus" designation). Aquilegia comes from the Latin word for eagle in reference to the flower's five spurs which purportedly resemble an eagle's talon. The Royal Horticultural Society spells the specific epithet "coerulea".