This the first time I have had this plant. Anyone tried them before?

It looks like a purple rose. What I have read is they are difficult. So far it has bloomed very little but it has a lot of buds. We have had a lot of rain and not much sun since I purchased it a month ago. The rain for 30 dys and cloudy might be the problem.

They are lovely! I grow them a lot from seeds. I get my best results with morning sun and afternoon shade. I usually feed once a week with that one tablespoon per gallon stuff .. though I make my solution a bit richer - about 1.5 tbs per gallon. To keep them blooming you need to cut off spent blooms or they will go to seed and the seed heads are sticky messes. They also seem to do better in pots than in the ground .. at least for me.

This one is Sapphire Pink Rim

You are very good everything I have read say it is hard to grow them from seeds.

I purchased it in a pot I might move it up to a bigger pot because it is in a small 6" pot and it is very pot bound. I really only have about a month or two of summer growing time though.

Thank you for the info on the fert. and dead heading.

I usually winter sow the Lisianthus and get pretty good results. Considering your zone and where you are, they would probably like more sun than what they get down here in the South.

I grow them from seed too. Usually I don't get great germination (50%?) They are very slow, and stay tiny for a long time. Winter sowing wouldn't work for them here, they just wouldn't have time to bloom. I start them in Feb or March under lights. This year I had great germination and have 10 pots with 3-4 each. No blooms yet, but buds are starting on about half of them.

Those Sapphire Pink Rim are lovely! This year I have Echo Blue and Echo Yellow which are longer stemmed than the sapphire series. Love them as cut flowers.

I never thought of using them as cut flowers .. one of my favorites is Cinderella Pink.

Bluebells are one of my favorites. I have two plants, the purple single bloom growing this season - Texas bluebell. I find them difficult to germinate too. I ordered seeds of the double pink and a few other varieties but got no germination.

Anne, love your photos- will try them again.

The Cinderella line were the first lisianthus I tried. I agree the pink are stunners!

Bluebells are not something I have grown from purchased seed, but I did buy rhizomes from one of the cheapo mail order companies years ago, and they self seed like crazy, I have tons of them now. I agree they are lovely in the spring. Since they self seed so readily, I would expect them to be a great candidate for winter sowing.

Thanks! I love the buds of Lisianthus.

Geof, if you collect some seeds - how about a trade? Gotta get my hands on those cinderellas.

It is doing better since I moved it to morning shade and late afternoon sun.

piksihk said:Geof, if you collect some seeds - how about a trade? Gotta get my hands on those cinderellas.

Betsy - I am not much of a seed collector. Plus the bluebells - foliage and all are gone by this time of year.

A couple of my lisianthus are beginning to bloom!
Because the buds start off yellow I assumed they were some of the yellow ones (growing yellow and "blue") nice surprise.

Lisianthus is actually a perennial and can be wintered over indoors.
In my zone they love full sun - grew em on my deck.
They make great cut flowers and are used a lot in the floral trade - particularly for weddings. As a cut flower they are quite expensive.

I had one this year which bloomed from early May on. It is now in my basement and just finished.

David the stems dried up and the plant died about August. I did collect seeds because I had so many flowers so I am going to winter sow them.

I have had them survive in the garden over winter in GA. I have about five of them outside now so we'll see. If we have a mild winter they may make it, or I could mulch them.

My pot moved to the basement under lights had 3 stems. One did dry up - kapoot! But the other 2 look fine and I let them go to seed. Hoping the plant makes it over winter. I will be planting seed in January or so.

I have it under 1,000 watts of metal halide lights running 12 hours which may be a bit much.

Cinta - sorry your plant bit the dust. Good luck with sowing the seeds. This will be the first time I have tried.

Thank you David. I am not good at growing seeds indoors. If it is not WS they are as good as dead. I do not have the time or diligence to water timely.

I just sowed some seeds today from the seeds I collected this fall. They do much better for me when they self-sow but I thought I would scatter some just for the fun of sowing; it was such a lovely day today after the rain last evening. We'll see what happens...I would be happy with just one germination.

I would love to try the pink and double ones.

Good luck Betsy. I am wintering over a double pink in my basement and will be starting some collected seeds from that plant.