Caring for your alstroemerias (princess lillies)

IRT Maintenance Gardener Brian Wardhaugh gives us his tips on how to grow and care for the popular alstroemerias (princess lily).

The alstroemerias, commonly known as Peruvian lily, princess lily or lily of the Inca, are popular and hardy cottage garden plants.

With their long stems and prolific flowering they provide colour to the perennial border and make a great cut flower, which I like to mix with limonium perezii, or sea statice, which will last in a vase for weeks inside.

Over the past decade or so new compact forms growing to only 30cms have been developed, that come under the umbrella name of princess lily, which is available in a wide range of colours. I particularly like the yellow form and the pure white called Claire.

These new cultivars are great in pots and as edging plants or simply planted among other annuals and colourful perennials. They put on a terrific spring display and under favourable conditions will flower for many months. Their only drawbacks are they don’t like extreme heat, which will shut down flower production, and they do like a reasonable amount of water. Spent flowers can be pulled away and this will encourage new flowering shoots, and where plants die down a little after heat, plants will normally recover when cooler weather returns.