Description
(Prospero autumnalis)
Dense spikes of purple-blue flowers appear suddenly in August, one day it is summer, next day they are there and the earliest harbingers of autumn are with us.
We find this very easy here and hardy in spite of its “book” reputation and it seems to survive cold well. In one London garden I visited many years ago, it withstood incredible neglect, (it had established there in an overgrown, silt-filled bird-bath with no drainage!) yet the owner said that it still flowered each Summer over many years. With care and attention it does far better of course and this is a great little plant for a pan under alpine glass, where the bulbs can be close-packed for a long lasting display.
This is a new stock, traceable to sand dunes in Andalusia, S. Spain. It makes lovely slender foliage only some 10cm long and equally diminutive spikes of lovely, pale pink-blue, starry flowers from August and September sporadically through to November.
