Asphodelus acaulis

[Gerry Webster]

I flowered this plant for the first time this year & was quite disappointed to find that the flowers lasted less than 24hrs under glass (plastic). Is this a common experience or is my cultivation at fault?

[ArnoldT]

Gerry:

Yes they fade rather quickly here as well under glass in New Jersey.

[Lesley Cox]

I don't think that they are so short-lived here, though I've not seen the flowers under glass. It's quite hardy in NZ at least and flowers from early winter through until early spring for me, a lot of flowers in each bunch (which I think may be at the end of a single stem) and with seed forming on the curled down stems.

[ebbie]

Each flower blooms relatively short, but the many buds go on successively. Therefore, the flowering period extends here with me in the alpine house for more than two weeks. Gerry, I think your plant will be still young and only make few buds.

[Gerry Webster]

Arnold, Lesley - thanks for your responses.

Ebbie  - you are right. My plant is young; it produced only 3 buds in this, its first flowering.

[shelagh]

Gerry, Ivor Betteridge used to have a good one that made the show bench when they had the very early non-comp at Loughborough.  His was quite large and very well flowered but I haven't seen one for quite a few years.

[Darren]

I think I remember that plant Shelagh. Was it the one where the leaves were nice and tightly coiled on the top-dressing beneath the flowers? Whenever I have tried it the leaves grow up vertically and the flowers hide among them! Have long since given up on it as a result. Probably poor light or over-rich substrate was the cause here - I'd love to see what YT could do with this species.

[Tim Ingram]

I've grown this outside for years and it does just what Darren says. It is a plant that I must try on the sand bed under much more spartan conditions. To get good flowering plants to display though I think it needs dividing regularly - it is pretty vigorous on the raised bed in our garden.

[Maggi Young]

I've grown this outside for years and it does just what Darren says. It is a plant that I must try on the sand bed under much more spartan conditions. To get good flowering plants to display though I think it needs dividing regularly - it is pretty vigorous on the raised bed in our garden.

Astonishing to me that this lovely pant can be grown outside. Since yours is doing so  successfully, Tim,  I would certainly think that it would love life in a sand bed. And what a charming colour contrast it would bring there.  I find the colour so pretty - waiting here for buds to open.

[krisderaeymaeker]

I've grown this outside for years and it does just what Darren says. It is a plant that I must try on the sand bed under much more spartan conditions. To get good flowering plants to display though I think it needs dividing regularly - it is pretty vigorous on the raised bed in our garden.

I agree with you Tim . I grow it both in pot and the garden and I wil change the soil conditions in the garden in the future as it grows to good overthere...
They are both in flower but flowers in the greenhouse are much better . Outside they do ot open for the moment ....
Picture 1 & 2 in the greenhouse .
Picture 3 & 4 in the garden .

[Gerry Webster]

Thanks to everyone who commented. One of these days I hope to have plants like those of Kris.

[ebbie]

Asphodelus acaulis today in my greenhouse. It is not planted in a pot, but rather in a deep plunge. In the pot it must often divided and repotted, or it starves.

[Lesley Cox]

That's very nice Ebbie and not so much foliage that the flowers can't be seen.