Lewisia Species, Cliff Maids, Siskiyou Lewisia, Siskiyou Bitterroot

This plant is beautiful, but this site recommended that it will grow in all the states but the most important state, Montana it grows ver...Read Morey well here and is also the state flower. The flower is an important food supplement used by native Americans. The flowers, and seeds are considered rare in nature and are not to be picked or seeds collected. This can change the genetics of the natural plant. As always with wild flowers check with your local county extension office to be assured that this would not become a aggressive plant, as wild flowers can do that.

I obtained 2 of these plants early summer of 2003. I reside in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Hot, dry summers and...Read More moderate winters. I am not a rock-garden gardener but someone suggested these would look good in one of our front beds with sedum and grasses.

Despite the very cold snap and lots of snow this past winter, they have survived - no problem - and since we had a warm April, they have now been blooming profusely for a good month. Everyone stops and asks what they are!! They are great, and so pretty against the pink oyama rock in that dry bed.

I tried growing these from seeds for years and never so much as saw a seedling. I bought one in a 4" pot from a local grower, sank the p...Read Moreot in VERY rich vegetable garden soil, mulched it with pine needles and forgot it completely. The following spring I was rewarded with INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL little flowers that really knocked my socks off. I promptly ordered about a dozen plants from nurseries in Washington State and potted the little seedlings up in regular soil that had been amended with a good dose of sand, and planted them all in clay dish gardens with gravel mulch. I put the plants in a 60-degree minimum greenhouse for the winter, in full sun, and have lost only one plant. I only water them when the leaves (which are quite succulent) start to wither; then I water them sparingly. They seem quite happy, and I expect flowers in very early spring.

Two years ago I spread an inch deep of white gravel mulch over pretty rich soil in an old tire, and planted a Lewisia. It didn't flower l...Read Moreast year, and the bottom leaves of the rosette tended to rot out in wet weather.

I had to destroy the tire garden abruptly this May, so I scooped the Lewisia into a deep plastic pot, keeping the gravel mulch, and it promptly flowered all over the place. I think I may have given it some Peters 20-20-20 fertilizer when I salvaged it, and having it in a pot on a stone step gave it a drier, breezier climate.

It has also set some tiny, shiny black seed - only one or two out of all the flowers.