It’s been four years that we’ve been trialing the dwarf princess lily, Alstroemeria ‘Zoe’. We were hesitant about it’s winter hardiness, especially after everyone got burned by the tender Alstroemeria ‘Rock and Roll’. After an extensive trial period, it has proven to be an outstanding, albeit slow-growing, gem for the garden. Below is a photo of it in the garden this week. It’s looking like a plant we should include in a future catalog, but we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’ve been deeply suspicious of Alstroemeria since watching University of California Berkeley bring in bulldozers to try to stop the rampage in the Botanical Garden. Possibly a well-behaved plant in an appropriate environment, but I’ll pass.
Great point. This is why we spend so much effort trying to educate people to stop lookinmg at plants at a genus, and often at a species level, and then extrapolating completely incorrect assumptions. The weedy alstroemeria in California is A. psittacina, and its hybrid, Alstromeria ‘Ligtu’. Both of those are garden aggressive here as well, although in the right place, they can be quite nice. This is why we trial plants. None of the hybrids we offer are aggressive in any way, in fact, most are tight clumpers. If we operated under the theory that one member of a genus or species is a bad actor, and should be avoided, we would most certainly need to eliminate all Homo sapiens, if your first and only encounter was with a violent mass murderer.
A way with words as well as with plants!
The color along with the variegated leaves is quite pretty! I imagine in Zone 5 where I live it’s not going to be hardy – ?
Sadly, we’d rate this as only hardy to Zone 7b, but it sure would make a nice container plant for the summer.
Beautiful
Beautiful, very interesting contrast.
Love it! Especially the foliage when not in bloom!
I vote a resounding yes!