If there’s one plant I’ve failed with more than any other over the years, it’s the alstroemeria, and yet you see vigorous swathes of this almost everlasting flower gracing walled gardens of large houses. I have seen hundreds of sun-shot coral-silk blooms flopping over paths in sunny borders. It’s the warmth of the soil that initiates flowering, so most perform after six weeks of warm soil, and they dislike disturbance.

The ones I have seen happily thriving in rather aged gardens are probably Ligtu Hybrids developed from plants collected from Chile in around 1925 by Harold Comber. The final selection was made at the Six Hills Nursery at Stevenage by Clarence Elliott who was also responsible for spotting Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ and Fuchsia ‘Mrs Popple’. This man knew a good plant when he saw it. Vita Sackville West famously said that she always knew that summer was over once the Ligtu hybrids faded, usually in July.

The trouble is I haven’t got room for a ground-snatching thug. I want to grow well-behaved varieties, so I am taking an extra special interest in the current trial at RHS Wisley where 90 different alstroemerias, or Peruvian lilies, are planted in blocks. I’d like to report that they are blazing away and making a glorious display. Unfortunately the trial is gappy having been ravaged by last winter’s weather.

Rather like tulips, the alstroemeria apparently sends down fat roots that penetrate the depths of the ground over many years.

This makes them hardy, given enough time, because frost rarely penetrates the deeper crowns — once they get there. Those on sandy soil have an advantage as these conditions always encourage plants to wander as they will, either sidewards or downwards. One of our committee members (who gardens on sandy loam) has no problem over-wintering his, yet he lives only 30 miles from my alstroemeria graveyard.

When I visited a flower farm in South Africa it was possible to see acres of yellow alstroemerias poking through the proteas and leucadendrons. The farmer hadn’t been able to rid himself of the deeply embedded roots and they were more unwelcome than weeds.

Establishing alstroemerias seems to have been a problem for decades. In days gone by, dormant roots were sent out mail order along with the salient advice to plant them nine inches deep and to mulch them deeply for the first two years. However, with pot-grown alstroemerias deep planting is an impossibility so hard winters will often kill or severely weaken your newly acquired alstroemerias.

Viv Marsh (alstroemeria expert and a nurseryman who grows 90 for sale in Shropshire) advises a six-inch-thick bark mulch applied in late-autumn in order to protect plants in the garden. If you do take this course, add a nitrogen-based sprinkle of fertiliser first. Decomposition uses up nutrients like nitrogen. He also advises gardeners to pull the spent flowering stems from the base (rather than cutting them back) and to shear them back after their first flush. We should persevere with alstroemerias until they become established because they come in varying colours and heights, although I rather despise the shorter ones. They also offer blue, and Viv Marsh’s entry, ‘Perfect Blue’, is one of those that shines out at RHS Wisley, as does a wonderfully variegated one with ruby-red flowers called ‘Phoenix’. Viv Marsh (www.postalplants.co.uk/01939 291475).