Top Four Cut Flowers Series: Lisianthus

Over the last few years, I think #lisianthus has been the flower MOST intriguing to our customers. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said, “I’ll take the roses,” and then lifted a bouquet of lisianthus out of the bucket at the farmers market. When I tell them that these flowers actually aren’t roses, that I don’t even grow roses, I think they genuinely doubt me for a moment!

Elegant and proud, lisianthus can easily stand alone in a #bouquet, or be mixed with other stems. And in terms of vase life, they get the gold. Reminiscent of roses, but without the thorns. Does it get any better?!

Unfortunately, getting a lisianthus plant to the point of harvest is something of a challenge. Not impossible– but definitely among the more difficult things to grow. Here in Wisconsin, lisianthus must be grown as an annual, as they won’t survive our winters. Most people who grow lisianthus as #cutflowers order them in as plugs. Plugs are basically starter plants, or seedlings. And while each plant typically costs about a quarter, if you are growing hundreds (or thousands), and then add shipping costs, it can soon turn into quite an investment.

To alleviate that a bit, I used to start my lisianthus from seed. (Now I typically order all of my lisianthus in the form of plugs, simply because of the insane amount of time they demand!) But seed costs only a few dollars a packet, so if you have the time, set-up, and ambition, it can be a good option.

Because lisianthus grows so slowly, I used to start my seeds in January. I used #soilblocks, and surface sowed each seed (meaning that I did not cover them with soil). It’s very important to mist them a couple of times a day so that the seeds don’t dry out during germination! That first year, I started about a thousand seeds this way. I learned quickly that in order to have success with lisianthus, there was something that I needed, that I didn’t have enough of.

PATIENCE. The first thing you need to have to grow lisianthus is PATIENCE.

And the second thing you need to have is MORE PATIENCE.

(At right, what my lisianthus soil blocks looked like two months after sowing. These were actually the biggest ones I ever had at the 2-month mark!)

Lisianthus can take over two weeks to germinate, and then when they do, they are so incredibly tiny and miniscule, that you have to squint to see them. I was literally standing over my trays with a magnifying glass! Then when they do germinate, the rate of growth is so incredibly slow, that sometimes I wonder if they are growing at all.

At about the 3-month mark, I “bumped them up” which means I moved the little seedlings into a bigger cell tray, with more space for each one to grow. It ended up being a total of four solid months of babying them-- watering, watching, and BEGGING-- before I decided they are big enough to move outside. At that point, it was April, and even though I knew that the timing was right, (lisianthus are pretty tough when it comes to the cold), I struggled to transplant these little flower babies to my outdoor beds at a time of year when frost and chilly nights are still prevalent.

But outside they went, with a row cover over them just like a blanket. They put on a lot of root growth during the cool of spring, so getting them outside at this point is important. One year, we had a snowstorm in late April. I remember waking up to snow on the ground, just certain that months of hard work were down the drain, and that those lisianthus seedlings were dead. But when I lifted the row cover and peeked underneath . . . they looked just as happy as the day before.

Each year, as the weather warms, and other crops take off, I admit that I kind of forget about lisianthus for a bit. Soon, it is June, and other than weeding the bed a few times, they don’t demand any attention. (They’re kind of like those friends who asked to stay a week or two at your summer cabin. When you finally go up to the cabin a month later, you realize . . . they’re still there!?) Lisianthus takes up space in your garden for the long haul of the season. And they don’t really look all that different in June than they did in April. But, if you’re patient . . .

In July, all of a sudden, lisianthus begin to stretch, and soon you see buds forming. In August, the show begins, and I am reminded that now- 8 months later!- all the work was worth it. Customers appreciate a flower that holds in the vase, and lisianthus is the champion when it comes to #vaselife. I typically tell people to expect them to last 10-14 days if taken care of. One time, I had someone tell me that she still had a stem of lisianthus four weeks later! That’s not the norm— but WOW!

Photo credit at left: #elizabethcarpenterphotography

If you're going to try your hand at starting lisianthus from seed, I would suggest ordering double the amount of seed than you actually think you'll need. You will likely lose lots of them-- they either don’t germinate, don’t survive plug stage, or succumb to fusarium wilt, a fungal disease common in lisianthus in the field. I have grown them successfully both outside in the field, and inside our unheated high tunnel.

Have you ever grown lisianthus? Would you like to try? Comment below!