How to Pick Eucomis Bulbs

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen on behalf of Expert Village. Pineapple Lily's or Eucomis are one of the most beautiful summer blooming flowers you can add to your garden. They are called Eucomis because they have been around since Greek times and it means beautiful hair. The flowers kind of look like they have beautiful hair or a topknot and it looks like someone has got a big bunch of hair on the top of them. They are from South Africa along with all of my other favorite flowers where they are found in mountains near the rivers and creeks, all over the Eastern Cape and Western Cape. They are one of the most beautiful flowers that we are privileged to get from South Africa and there are hundreds of varieties of them. The pink pineapple is gorgeous because the flower is two toned. It has green with kind of a purple edge. No two are the same. Some have really dark, dark purple stripes and some have a softer pink stripe and they are just vibrant. They look almost like phlax or grass or something really exotic in your garden and they do great in containers or the ground. I am always kind of careful with using containers especially if you live somewhere where it freezes just a bit or is really wet in the winter because if it gets really wet it turns into an ice cube and you can lose the plant so I either protect them, dig them up, throw them against the eves or put them in the ground. I have never lost a pineapple lily in the ground. The bulbs look just like a Hershey Kiss candy or a pyramid, so the tip goes up, you plant them about three inches deep. You can plant them in sun or part shade and I have been amazed how much shade they can actually handle. They almost look like a hosta or a woodland flower when you put them in your woods or your shade garden. The two varieties that I am most familiar with are the pink comosa or the white autumnalis and so they are both really hearty, really easy to grow and great additions to your garden. In our next section we are going to talk about a shade plant, astilbes.