February 3, 2009

Another First Time Bloomer



I am very excited to see that my Scilla peruviana or Cuban Lily is blooming for the first time in my landscape. I first saw a flowering Scilla four years ago in a friends landscape and had to have one. I searched all my local retailers for a bulb and was never able to find one. So I ordered one online and planted it three years ago. The first couple of years it would come up with strap shaped foliage in the fall and go dormant in the spring. While the plant did not flower, it did grow and multiply. This year the plant has seven bloom stalks and is gorgeous! The clusters of purple-blue flowers are real showstoppers. The foliage gets about one foot tall and references say it can grow from zones 7-10. You can propagate it by division and seed. I plan to collect seed and see if I have any luck. I am very interested to see if the plant flowers again next year, so will leave my plant undisturbed for at least another year. I have also seen reference to this plant being used as a foliage plant, so may give this a try in the future.


1 comment:

Kim Taylor Kruse said...

What a pretty flower! And the foliage is lovely, too. How tall does the foliage get?