Collection: Gloxinia

A glorious flowering garden and house plant, Gloxinias have brilliantly colored trumpet-shaped flowers and exquisitely lovely, large, flat, velvety mid-green leaves.   There is a hardy gloxinia and a florist gloxinia.  While both can be grown indoors, the hardy gloxinia is clump forming with dark green leaves that are deeply divided to the point that they almost look like ferns.  The flowers are trumpet shaped in colors of purple, pink or white with yellow throats. 

Related to African violets, the florist gloxinias are small plants, reaching only 6 to 12 inches tall with an equal spread, producing small, colorful flowers in summer.  The leaves have a velvety texture with a dark green color.  The blooms are bell shaped and come in a variety of color ranging from shades of blue and purple, rich crimson red and white to various combinations of colors.  Some forms, called the Tigrina Gloxinias, have flowers heavily spotted or delicately veined in one of these colors on a white background, and others have frilled edges, touched with white. 

Gloxinias are typically planted outdoors in spring after the danger of frost has safely passed.  To keep the flowers looking their best, always remove spent flowers throughout the plants growing season.