Delphiniums Blue...or Larkspur?

At the nursery yesterday, I was on the track of autumn crocus to fill some gaps in the garden when I saw them. I felt I was falling into a sea of colour as the deep blue drew me in. Larkspur. The name was almost as alluring as the colour, and I had to buy them. It planted some earlier this year, but they've already finished blooming, and I thought their season was over.

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The first Nancy Drew mystery I ever read -- I was probably in Grade 5 -- was The Mystery of Larkspur Lane. On the cover picture, a cosy little cottage was tucked into a garden at the end of an avenue of heavenly blue flowers. Larkspur. The name sounded exotic.

The pot of flowers I bought yesterday looked identical to the one I planted out in July, but I was sure those had been labeled delphiniums. "Are they the same?" I asked the clerk. "Yes," she said. "They're also called delphiniums."

That word had its own magic, recalling to my mind a line remembered from A.A. Milne's poem, "The Doctor and the Dormouse." Until the nasty doctor imposes his yellow chrysanthemums, the dormouse enjoys "a wonderful view of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue)."

I've got red geraniums growing by the door as well. Makes me wonder.