Michigan Lisianthus

Lisianthus opens in ruffled, rose-like blooms across the softest palette in the summer garden, whites and creams, blush and pink, lavender and deep purple, often with several buds branching off one graceful stem. The double forms are so full and layered that people mistake them for peonies or garden roses, right up until they touch a petal and feel that impossibly thin, tissue-paper texture. It carries the elegance of a rose with a lighter, more ethereal feel, which is why it has become a wedding-day staple and one of the most coveted cut flowers of the season.

Lisianthus is not a Michigan native. It is a prairie gentian in the gentian family, native to the warm grasslands of the southern United States and Mexico, as described on its Wikipedia page. Because it is a slow, heat-loving crop that wants a long warm stretch, our Michigan farmers have to coax it patiently through the season, which is why local lisianthus arrives in the heart of summer, roughly July through September, rather than early in the year.

That difficulty is exactly why locally grown lisianthus is worth seeking out. It is a crop only a skilled grower attempts, and because our collective’s member farmers tend it through that long season and cut the stems at their prime, the blooms reach you fresher and more affordable than the air-freighted imports most florists rely on. Reserve lisianthus as a premium add-on to a DIY bucket for your wedding or event, or ask our floral designers to build it into a custom arrangement.