Ranunculus - La Belle Pastel
Plants
One of my absolute favourite ranunculus varieties! Colours lean from pale true pastels to some brighter mid-colours in shades from cream, yellow, apricot, pink & magenta. It has the most unique colouring as unlike most ranunc varieties we grow which tend to have smoother colouring (or clearly definited picotee/striato), the La Belle Pastel has the most amazing depth to its colouring. The flowers are almost dusted in two layers of similar colours. They also just keep getting better, and better as they age, slowly fading and exposing their black centres at the very end.
I'm probably not doing them justice in my explanation, and they often photograph brighter than they feel in real life, so they are definitely one of those flowers that need to be seen in person to fully appreciate how uniquely special they are.
Anyways the breeder very sadly discontinued this variety a few years ago (the La Belle Series is naturally smaller than the Amandine series which is where they are currently focusing their breeding efforts on). I thankfully was able to order some of the very last seeds they had available and have slowly grown them out and saved corms for the last few years, and excitingly we have some corms to spare this year!
As La Belle Pastel is a mix it is a lucky dip which specific colour from the mix each plant will be.
Please note, we have a minimum plant order of $45 (approx. 5 plants) – you can mix & match any plants to meet the minimum.
Our plant boxes can fit up to 10 plants per box.
Plant orders are shipped on Mondays (& Tuesdays).
See our Shipping Page for more info.
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Ranunculus asiaticus
Plant Type: Bulb
Ideal Location: Full Sun / Partial Shade
Spacing: 10–15cm
Height: 30cm+
A Note on Hardening Off
All our plants are grown as we would grow & plant ourselves, which means we typically do not harden off (acclimatise) any of our smaller plants before planting.
Instead, after planting, we always cover all our plants with some sort of frost/mikroclima type cloth over wire low hoops. We leave this cover on till the plants are too big for the cover (usually a couple months later). We have found this extra layer of prolonged cover does away with any need to faff around hardening off plants, and the difference between any plants under these low hoops and those with zero transitionary cover is astonishing!
Prior to planting we also always give our plants a very good soak in water with a swig of seaweed solution and innoculate our plants with beneficial microorganisms. This helps alleviate stress, and start all our plants off with the best possible beginnings.
If however you don't / can't plant under some similar sort of cover, then we do definitely recommend you give your plants 5–14 days to slowly acclimatise to your less protected environment before planting out. We are reasonably mild compared to more southern growers, so easing the plants into colder climates is definitely advised.
Cloth: Polynet / Redpath
Hoops: 4mm Fencing Wire (which we cut up to fit our beds, with bolt cutters as fencing pliers are waaay too hard on our hands!)