Scilla

Asparagaceae

Squill

They are generally low-growing plants with mid-green, strap-shaped, usually glossy leaves. Their flowers are mainly blue and star-shaped to bell-shaped.

Uses

Rockeries, grassy banks and lawns, border plants, container plants.

Culture

These plants are quite hardy. They prefer a moist but well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. 

Propagation

They can be grown from ripe seeds planted in the summer. Seedlings take around 3 to 5 years to flower. Alternatively, separate offsets after the leaves have died back and plant straight away. These may take a couple of years to flower.   
 

Cultivars

S. peruviana (Cuban Lily) - to 24-30cm tall. They produce dense flower heads with as many as a hundred blue star-shaped flowers to 2cm wide in late spring to early summer.

S. sibirica - to 15cm tall. These produce up to four flower stems per bulb each with up to five bright blue star-shaped flowers in spring.  

 

Plant Health

They are prone to rust which causes yellow-brown leaf spots and dark brown spores. Also, smut may cause flowers to become blackened  with spores. Eelworms may infiltrate the bulbs and destroy them. Aphids sometimes attack stored bulbs.  
 

More info

There are somewhere in the region of 50-80 species of bulbous plants in this genus which come from Europe, Asia and North Africa.

 

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