Alstromerias are best known as cut flowers, where their rich colors and lovely veining grace many a vase, where they’ll last for as long as two weeks. But they can also be grown in the garden, where they do best in light, well-drained soil. They bloom freely through the summer and come in almost all shades of the rainbow except true blue.

Where they’re perennials, in the warmest parts of the country, deadhead flowers when they are done blooming to prevent them from spreading too much by seed.