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Alstroemeria Little Miss Zoe ['Zoe'] PP30,680 (Little Miss Zoë Peruvian Lily) - A compact and mounding tuberous perennial to 1 foot tall with narrowly lance-shaped leaves that have a broad cream to pale yellow central banding and irregular dark green margins. In late spring on through summer appear open clusters reddish-pink flowers flecked with brownish spots and yellow base, that rise just above the foliage. Plants have a crown of slender rhizomes that attach to succulent storage roots below. Each year new unbranched shoots arise from the crown to produce leaves along the stem and an umbel of flowers at the tip.
Plant in full sun to light shade and water regularly to occasionally in late spring and early summer. Tolerates fairly dry conditions in coastal gardens but vigor and flowering is best when plants are irrigated. Hardy to 15-20° F but tolerates lower temperatures if well mulched. When trimming or cutting Alstroemeria for flowers it is best to pull the stems straight up and out, so they break off below ground at the crown to stimulate the formation of new shoots. Do so carefully so not to pull out pieces of the rhizome itself.
The Little Miss Series of Alstroemeria are dwarf plants that were originally hybridized by Robert Goemans at Chichester in Sussex, England. In 1997 Mr. Goemans named one of his hybrids Alstroemeria 'Tara' (Little Miss Tara" in the series) and this plant received U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,722 in 2004. We have always had a special fondness for the name "Tara" as we had a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog with this name that roamed our gardens, prompting us to name such plants as Anisodontea 'Tara's Pink' and 'Tara's Wonder'' and this encouraged us to grow Alstroemeria 'Tara' (Little Miss Tara) PP14,722, which we listed in our nursery catalogs from 2011 until 2013. Alstroemeria 'Zoe' is a naturally occurring branch mutation that was found within a crop of Alstroemeria 'Tara' in a nursery in Sussex, United Kingdom in 2014 and it received US Plant patent PP30,680 in July 2019. Recently the Little Miss Series patents have since been assigned to Wulfinghoff Alstroemeria, a nursery that breeds and selects Alstroemeria in The Netherlands.
The genus Alstroemeria (at times spelled Alstremeria) was named by Carl Linnaeus, often called the Father of Taxonomy, for his friend and student Klaus von Alstroemer (Clas Alströmer), a Swedish baron. Alstroemeria come from two areas within South America with summer growing species restricted to eastern Brazil and winter-growing plants from central Chile with common names such as Peruvian Lily, Parrot Lily, or Lily of the Incas.
This information about Alstroemeria Little Miss Zoe ['Zoe'] PP30,680 displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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![Image of Alstroemeria Little Miss Zoe ['Zoe'] PP30,680](https://www.smgrowers.com/imagedb/Alstoemeria_LittleMissZoe.jpg )