Lisianthus - Arena Apricot

Lisianthus can be divas to grow, but their incredibly long lasting flowers are absolutely worth learning how to grow.

One of the key things that make lisianthus tricky to grow is getting them started. From seed they take many months to grow into a plant big enough to plant out, and that means there's many months when you can over or under water them and accidentally kill them undoing all your months of tending! We've got them through that hardest beginning stage for you, so you've got a head start from the get-go.

The second key tricky part of lisianthus, is that they are very susceptible to root pathogens (fusarium + botrytis) and have a reputation of dying suddenly. We've got them through their most vulnerable stage, so hopefully we've reduced the chance of 'Lisianthus Sudden Death Syndrome' for you, fingers crossed. We inoculate all our lisianthus plants with Superzyme (beneficial bacteria & fungi), which also helps give them a leg up.

Lisianthus are native to prairies which is important to remember when growing them, which means they like life on the drier side of things. After planting they will need more intentional hand watering to help them settle into their new soil. But after they've settled in, they can be remarkably drought hardy (I had plants locked up in a tunnel unwatered for weeks over the original lockdown and came back to them flowering happily away!).

Lisianthus typically produce one big full incredibly long lasting flower stem, but if you harvest that stem reasonably deep, they will slowly put out a later second flush of smaller stems. You could also pinch the stems out by about a half or two thirds as soon as your plants arrive and they will get right onto branching and produce more smaller stems for your first flush.

Lisianthus flowers don't open too much after cutting, least not that fast anyways, so we typically wait until there's about 2-3 open flowers on each stem before harvesting.