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| Lewisia cotyledon plants growing in my cool greenhouse. |
I have been growing lewisia cotyledon plants now for perhaps tewnty years or so. I love their bright starry flowers which appear every April and May with so little fuss. They are a plant which everybody loves when they see them, and so I wonder why they are so little grown in this country. Perhaps it's because they dislike wet, and so have to be sheltered from our soggy climate one way or another during our wet winters. They don't need any artificial heat at all, being mountain plants, and are easily raised from seed. They are ideal for a cool conservatory where they will brighten your day, and invite compliments from your visitors.
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| Striped forms are predominently pink and white pr red stripes on an amber background. |
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Originating from the mountain slopes of Western USA, they are named after their discoverer Gaptain Merryweather Lewis (1804) of the the famous Lewis and Clark pairing. They grow in the Siskiyou, Cascades, and Rocky mountains and so are true alpines despite their rather flamboyant appearance!
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| Pure ice-white forms of Lewisia cotyledon |
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As I said before, I've been gwowing them from seed for many years now, and through selective breeding have managed to increase the flower size in some of the striped varieties to about 4 cms diameter. Different foliage forms are also now emerging, and so in a few years time I hope to be able to offer all kinds of shapes and sizes and flower forms. The flower bunches grow to about 15 cms high and about 20 cms diameter, when grown with winter shelter. Those grown outside all year will probably be smaller in size, but still just as impressive. If you want to grow from seed yourself, sow in a gritty compost from March onwards through to July - we will have some of our own seed to sell later on in the year. After flowering, leave outside for the summer months (remove dead heads if you are not collecting seed - you may be rewarded with a second flush of flowers. Some people say they get flowers all summer if they dead head regularly), and then protect from wet from September onwards till Spring.
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| Schiaperalli Pink blooms! |
This year I'm going to experiment a bit. Apparently Lewisia are grown in cascading drifts down walls at Bodnant (north Wales). This is achieved by planting small sized new plants, and then nuturing them for a few years. I don't have a suitable south facing wall here in Cumbria, so I'm going to try them in a strawberry pot. I'll report back later!
Happy gardening!
P.S. We will be opening an online shop soon - just working out the details. In the meantime if you would like to purchase some plants, pleae email me at buckfernplants(at)gmail.com. Please replace (at) with the customary squiggly a. This is to avoid spam.
