Alstroemeria in FLA

I'm always trying out new bulbs in my garden. I read somewhere on Dave's Garden that you can grow Alstroemeria here in FLA as a perennial bulb if you 1) plant it in rich soil in a large container; 2) keep it fairly dry and out of direct sun throughout the summer.

I bought a gallon pot of them I found at Lowes last winter, and enjoyed a season of heavy blooms and lots of cut flowers. I added some Polka Dot Plants (the Alstroemeria were initially very small, and looked lonely in the pot).

Summer came, the Alstroemeria died back completely. I dragged the pot under the eaves of my gazebo, where it got hit lightly by a sprinkler (that ran way too often last summer), but was otherwise allowed to dry out completely. All summer, the pot looked completely dead, including the Polka Dots.

As soon as some cool weather hit, the Alstroemeria popped back up, and gave me some disappointing blooms. I read up on the plant, and some sources claimed they needed a lot cooling hours to produce flowers. I figured all was lost, but over the last couple of weeks, the things been flowering like crazy...

The Polka Dots bounced right back, though all summer there wasn't a spec of green in the pot.

If it blooms like it did last year, I can expect this level of bloom until mid-May. Not bad for a $4 pot of flowers.

I noticed an online vendor that sells a "grab bag" of bulbs for $5.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alstoemeria