Lisianthus

It's a long winter!

D ordered quite a few seeds, including seeds of a plant new to us: Lisianthus.  The seeds are pelletted because they are exceedingly small.  You pick the tiny pelletted seed up with a wet toothpick to put on the soil.  These seeds are super picky.  They need extreme moisture to germinate and need warmth.  

This picture (February 17, 2021) may have seven seedlings of the fifty planted.  They are very very tiny.

They grow very, very slowly - perhaps they will double in size in a couple more months.  Reading the facebook pages and gardening guides, it becomes clear why people buy plugs rather than try to do their own seeds.

So we broke down and ordered plugs:   https://farmerbailey.com/collections/lisianthus/products/lisianthus-mariachi?variant=40960527379

Lisianthus Mariachi

Also ordered Snapdragon Rocket https://farmerbailey.com/collections/snapdragon/products/snapdragon-rocket

and Statice  Qis mix

https://farmerbailey.com/collections/statice/products/statice

The first attempt at removing them was using a pencil.  

They are ready to go into the garden at this point, depending on weather.  On May 20, we did not have any frost in the long term forecast, so some of these were planted. These are mostly destined to the cutting garden.  That's a garden of flowers where any number can be removed for bouquets.  In this way, the balance of flowers in the other gardens is not affected by picking flowers for the house. These plants are amazingly slow growers.  The first stunning flower appeared on August 4. On August 7 , the second bud opened. On August 8 we incorporated it into a bouquet with white snapdragons and white zinnias. A few of the plants were put in the front yard, but most of the 56 plants were put into the cutting garden. The cutting garden has dahlias and snapdragons on the left.   Lisianthus is in the middle, with the first pink flower at the far end (along with fallen red snapdragons). To the right are liatris and strawflowers and gladiolus. On August 14, the pink lisianthus opened. The lisianthus is stunning with sweetpeas. And the sweetpeas make bouquet fragrant. Lisianthus has no scent. Will we grow these again?