Lachenalia (Cape-Cowslip)

Temperature:
50 F

The tiny, tender, teardrop-shaped bulbs should be planted about 1 inch apart, point up, and covered very lightly with soil. After summer heat is over, plant in a mix of two parts garden loam, one part peatmoss or humus, one part sand, and place in a coldframe until growth is well started. Then move in to a cool 50 F greenhouse (flower buds will not form in high temperature) and keep moist. Bell-shaped blossoms, appearing for several months starting December, hang in rows from the top half of 10-inch stems.

If you have no coldframe you may find, as I have, that keeping pots in the dark under the greenhouse bench until shoots are about 2 inches high, then bringing them up into the light, works as well.

Keep foliage growing for a while after flowering, then gradually withhold water until soil is completely dry. Leave bulbs in pots until the next growing season, then repot in fresh soil. Be extremely careful when repotting, as many very tiny offsets will have developed these can be potted to increase your supply of this interesting flowering plant.

Recommended:

L. contaminata, white flowers; L. purpureo-caerulea, blue-purple flowers; L. tricolor, red-tipped yellow flowers.