Plant Highlight: Bulbine

When we go to our retail locations (at least 3 sites, 8 times per month), I always make sure I am carrying at least 2 bulbine. I decide what plants to push, not because I really know anything about what's cool to grow, or because we have a bunch of one kind, but because I really like them. And I really like Bulbine!
We had a very cold winter here. Some of you will call us Floridians wimps because we whined that we had to turn the heat on and dig out coats, but it really was an unusually cold winter. Just ask the plants! We had so many just turn to cellular mush.

Our average frost is 28 degrees, and we may get a few a winter. But last winter, temps stayed in the teens for days. Even the orange groves were struggling to keep the fruit on the trees. We had some exciting sink holes pop up as a result because they pumped water continuously.

I was already highly recommending Bulbine to customers during the summer months. A succulent with pointy bright green leaves that are about 6 inches high, Bulbine shoots out a stalk 12 inches high with teeny orange and yellow petals popping out of a spike. During the summer, it's very easy to care for. You could neglect it and it would thrive. Very drought tolerant.

When I popped out of the house with my several sweaters on (didn't have a coat) to explore the survivors among the cellular mush, and the temps had climbed to the high 30's, there was Bulbine to greet me. And it was going to bloom! It therefore won my title as Plant of the Year, and I keep blabbing about it to customers.

I read that it was chosen in 2006 as Plant of the Year by the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscape Association, so it already has some notice. Good for it. It's a South African native, likes full sun, and is easy to propagate by breaking up the clumps (even I did it, so you can too).

Jim came home the other day with a plant list, nominees for Florida Gardening Magazine's 2011 recommendations. And Bulbine was on it. It won my vote. We have others that are on the list that I also really like, like Sweet Almond Bush and Cestrum, and others I can't think of right now. But I'm voting for Bulbine.