Cultivation Of Crops: How Wild is Your Lizzy?

It's Lisianthus season, and these layered flowers are capturing the hearts of floral designers and flower lovers all over the US. We’ve been growing Lisianthus (affectionately referred to as "Lizzy") for about a decade, and every year we see the demand for Lizzy increase more and more; taking a look at the photo below, it’s easy to see why!

Purple is the most popular lisianthus color

Lisianthus’s delicate, unfurling trumpet-shaped blooms of white, purple, cream, peach, pink, or bi-color fully capture the ever-popular wildflower esthetic. Its dainty buds continue to open along the smooth, green stem, giving the viewer a continual show and making it perfect in progressive bouquets.

Lisianthus Arrangements

Lisianthus is native to the warm, dry prairie regions of the Americas, and the particular variety that we grow—Grandiflorum—has been bred to be a long-lasting cut flower. Lizzy's need for a lot of heat and light makes it a great Southern California crop, which is why we grow them at our farm in Oxnard.

Growing Practices

We begin planting the very first plugs in October. Because we start in the cool of fall, these first plants will grow very slowly, usually giving us their first stems in February or March. However, after these first stems are harvested, the Southern California heat of spring and summer allows the plant to give us a second flush of flowers about 10-12 weeks later.

Hoop House full of Lizzys

We plant in hoop houses and keep watering to a minimum. To give Lizzy the heat it needs to stretch to its enviable height, we cover our hoop houses and keep the flaps closed which really warms it up. Not only does Lisianthus like heat and light—they love a dry environment, so our team takes great care to maintain the proper moisture level in the soil.

Freshly picked white, cream, and pink lisianthus

Once each crop reaches the length we want, it is time to harvest. We typically pick from early spring to late fall, giving us a 9-month Lisianthus season.

Design Practices

Lisianthus is a very popular as a wedding flower. Designers especially love the fact that Lisianthus has both a long vase life and long stems (2 weeks and 24 inches, respectively). Its length gives height and visual power.

The round, delicate, unfurling blooms add elegance and mass to arrangements, and its florets work wonderfully in boutonnieres and corsages. Its origin as a prairie flower makes it ideal for country-style, au natural, and wildflower arrangements, and its aesthetic screams "American grown."

We offer all the great lisianthus colors, so no matter what you have planned for summer, we will have a selection of these long-lasting, romantic blooms for any occasion.