Search for this extraordinary plant on the web and you may come across sites that have the audacity to describe its superlative flowers as "blue-green" or greenish blue" - and leave it at that.
Shun these detractors like the proverbial plague! This is horticultural sacrilege and is rather like referring to the Taj Majal as "an old Indian building" or the Grand Canyon as "a gulley".
The truth about this little South African bulb is that its flowers possess one of the very rarest colours in the botanical kingdom - a clear and luminescent jade green or turquoise that seems to be almost unworldly in origin and which is shared by literally a handful of other completely unrelated plant species. Seen against the low sunshine of a January afternoon, the tubular blooms glow like works of art fashioned from some scarce and priceless mineral.
If this has piqued your curiosity, you may be shocked to know that this wondrous plant is extremely scarce in the wild and is limited to only one location in South Africa´s western Cape, where it grows in seasonally damp hollows among outcrops of granite. Unbelievably, this precious site remains unprotected by national legislation and the last remnants of this population is gravely threatened by collection for the horticultural trade and by land development for coastal housing. As is so often the case, yet another of our most critically endangered species seems destined to go the way of the Tasmanian tiger and the great auk as a result of human greed and thoughtlessness. If we only spent a fraction of the money that we spend on on preserving works of art, to save these irreplaceable natural treasures, the world might be a richer and brighter place for us and for our descendants.
However, in the case of Lachenalia viridiflora, all is not lost. Following its discovery in the 1960s, it was brought into cultivation where it proved to be a remarkably easy plant to grow and propagate. Specialist collections around the world contain the species, but why it has not entered general cultivation is a mystery. Yet it is no more difficult to grow than many of the popular bulbs that are mass-produced every year in their millions to satisfy the horticultural trade.
Botanically speaking, the Lachenalias are a genus of exclusively southern African bulbous plants distantly allied to the ever popular hyacinths. Lachenalias are very different, however, and boast an incredible range of leaf shapes and patterns, and flowers ranging from golden yellow, white and violet, to scarlet, russet and shades of blue, many having extra-odinary combinations of up to four different shades and hues. All bear their tubular or bell-shaped flowers in
Like other members of the genus, Lachenalia viridiflora is a winter-growing species. The round white bulbs are naked (they are not protected with a tunic of dry leaf bases) and should be planted at a depth of no more than their own diameter. Use a good potting compost with a fairly base or slightly acidic pH, to which an inert drainage material such as fine, inert gravel should be added (Lachenalias like regular watering suring the growing season but should not be allowed to become waterlogged). Plant the bulbs sone 5 centimetres distant from each other, so eight or nine can easily be accommodated in a six inch pot.
Although it hails from South Africa, Lachenalia viridiflora is a winter growing plant and will not thank you in the slightest for inflicting heat on it. grow the plants too warm and they will become limp and leggy, if they grow at all! They are ideal plants for a bright windowsill in an unheated room or an unheated but frost-free conservatory or greenhouse. If you live in a region which permits you to grow them outside, they will even cope with a few degrees of air frost on an outer windowsill as long as you bring them indoors during more severe freezes.
Each bulb produces a pair of strap shaped leaves which are usually 8 to 10 centimetres in length; these can either be a plain fresh bright green, or heavily marked with purple spots. Very early in the season (often January in the Northern Hemisphere), the plants send up a scape of usually no more than 15 centimetres in height and bearing an average of fifteen of those remarkable tubular or narrowly urn shaped flowers. Each plant remains in flower for several weeks so you are at your leisure to enjoy this wonderful floral spectacle.
Water frequently during the growing and flowering period and feed every two weeks with a liquid fertiliser, especially once flowering has finished and the plants focus their energies on fattening up their bulbs for the summer dormancy. By early summer the leaves have faded and the bulbs should be stored completely dry in a cool place, preferably covered with dry compost of Vermiculite, until replanting at the beginning of September.
Lachenalia viridiflora bulbs are rarely seen for sale, but the species is very easy to cultivate from seed and will flower reliably in its second season - in fact, one of my plants bloomed within nine months of sowing! Use a good free draining compost, and thinly surface sow the small shiny black seeds during Autumn and Winter. Then, cover them with just enough sifted compost or fine sand to barely conceal them, place them in a bright location out of direct sunlight at no more than 20ºC, and do not allow the compost to dry out. An average germination of four weeks should be expected, after which the seedlings should be grown on with a little more shelter and protection than the adult plants, allowing the pots to dry out as they go dormant then potting on accordingly.
There you have it - a rare and remarkable plant that deserves to be far more widely known. And with such ease of cultivation and propagation, is there really any reason not to afford it a place in your home or garden?
Peter Ashby
At ABC Bulbs and Seeds, I provide fresh seeds of Lachenalia viridiflora and other rare and unusual plants at unbeatable prices and in generous quantities. Simply follow the link below to browse the site and order online:
