Growing Chinese Lantern Plant

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Chinese lantern plant is herbaceous, which means that parts of the plants are used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. It is a member of the family Solanaceae, most commonly known as nightshade plants. Nightshade plants also include potatoes, tomatoes and petunias, and share the genus Physalis with cape gooseberries (a very close relative).

The Chinese lantern plant Physalis Alkekengi  is easy to grow. In fact, one of its flaws may be that it’s too easy to grow. The chinese lantern plant, like mint, has rhizomes that spread horizontally, meaning that even if you chop down the plant without dropping any seeds, it might pop up in another part of your garden.  That’s why Physalis would do best planted in either a contained garden, or in a pot. Or even a pot that is buried in the ground, perhaps disguised with some cedar mulch.

Chinese lanterns like sunny borders but not all-day sunshine, and plenty of space or they will not produce lanterns – which is the whole point of having them.

They are also very invasive and will strangle other plants if given the chance, so they are ideal for a plot of ground with poor soil where nothing much else will grow.

If you don’t have a site like that you can grow them in an old bucket and bury the bucket to keep their roots from wandering.

Alternatively, grow them in a big pot or half a barrel, with something that grows tall and colourful in summer such as purple headed Verbena bonariensis.

The fruit will be transparent when dried or aged.

You can buy seeds from ebay Philippines or thru Makulay