Leucocoryne ixoides Blue Ocean - Glory-of-the-sun

Leucocoryne ixioides Blue Ocean, also known as Glory of the Sun, is a beautiful bulbous plant with curved star-shaped, deep blue flowers with a white eye and a sweet fragrance. This not very hardy, sometimes temperamental, Chilean plant has a strong character. It is capable of offering a spectacular flowering in early summer and sulking the following year. It requires careful preparation to flower. It thrives in the sun and in rich and well-drained soil. Its flowers are perfect for cutting.

Leucocoryne ixioides belongs to the Aliaceae family. It is found in scrub vegetation and valleys in the mountainous and somewhat arid coastal areas of Chile, in regions where rainfall is abundant in autumn, winter, and spring, and summers are hot and dry. it will therefore thrive in a Mediterranean-type climate.

The 'Blue Ocean' variety is a selection with blue flowers with white centres growing from a bulb that can only tolerate very light temporary frosts. It forms a clump of linear, long, and narrow, grass-like basal leaves which emit a garlic odour when crushed and turn yellow during and just after flowering. It blooms in June, attracting a large number of butterflies. It has 5 to 12, 4 to 6 cm (2in) diameter flowers with a sweet fragrance gathered in umbels at the top of tall, thin, and slightly twisted, 40 cm (16in) stems. They have remarkable staminodes (sterile stamens) emerging from the white throat of the corollas, resembling white horns. The bulbs go dormant in summer, during the hot and dry season.

Leucocoryne ixioides Blue Ocean is easy to grow in the ground in coastal areas where the mild winters and long summer drought closely resemble the conditions it experiences in the wild. It will naturalise there by forming bulblets. This plant will be magnificent in a rock garden, alongside botanical tulips, caper bushes, Erodium foetidum, Peruvian scillas, rockroses, beschorneria yuccoides, and asphodels. In colder regions, it will make a beautiful potted plant that can be stored dry in summer and protected from frost in winter. The flowers hold up well in a vase and will fill the house with their fragrance.