What’s been going on!

So let’s talk about something that actually likes the heat, Lisianthus.  Originally native to the prairies of Oklahoma and Texas, the Prairie Gentian knows something about hot conditions.  Then the Japanese flower breeders have taken it and worked their magic with stem length and many color and petal variations but this is not an easy crop to grow.  As one of the first to grow it in this area, since 1987, we have learned a thing or two about it.

Not all flower crops are created equal.  Some are easy to grow like zinnias and sunflowers, either from seed or transplant they grow like weeds, don’t need to be trellised and give consistent results.  Lisianthus in many ways is difficult.  The single hardest thing is producing good transplants which are started from almost invisible seeds and then can take up to 20 weeks to grow big enough to move out to the field and then you can hold them too long and it will stunt the whole crop, so many people just by expensive plugs but we grow our own.

Once moved to the field they initially grow slowly with only a tiny rosette of leaves until they begin to send up long slender stems with all the flower buds at the top, creating a very top heavy plant that has to have support.  So we work hard to keep the beds very clean and weed free with leaf mulch and many hand weedings and then build a trellis, with lots of posts to hold the netting that will keep them from falling over.  Of course you can imagine how cutting flowers out of the netting can only be a bit frustrating and slow.

If all is done right not only can we get multiple stems from each plant but it will regrow and give us a second smaller crop in the fall.  Besides the beauty of Lisianthus, they have about the longest vase life of any cut flower.  All of the above combined should lead to stems worth $3 a stem or more but because there are a fair number of producers of it in the market it remains a bargain but not all do as good a job as Betsy does.  Enjoy it over the next month while it is available.

Picture of the Week

A near perfect crop of Lisianthus

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