Plant in full coastal or part sun or light shade. Prefers a good fertile soil but tolerates heavy clay soils. Water occasionally and do not allow it to dry out fully. Succeeds in shade or semi-shade but the foliage is more attractive in a sunnier position. It is cold hardy to about -5°F but the flowers and young leaves are sensitive to frost. Noted as a plant that seems to be immune to the predations of rabbits and deer but as with other Bergenia one needs to be on the lookout for greenhouse thrips, which can speckle the foliage. This is a very handsome plant that is reminiscent of a large African violet. It reportedly can be grown indoors to be kept evergreen in cooler climates.

Bergenia ciliata is from the temperate Himalayan regions (from Kashmir to Nepal) where it grows from 6,500 to nearly 9,000 feet in elevation. The German botanist Konrad Moench named the genus to honor Karl August von Bergen an 18th century German physician and botanist. Adrian Hardy Haworth (1768–1833) first named this plant Megasea ciliata in 1821 with the specific epithet describing the ciliate hairs on the leavers. In 1831 Caspar Maria von Sternberg reclassified it as a Bergenia. We have grown this plant since 2001 from original stock plants obtained from Barry Glick of Sunshine Farm & Gardens. The image on this website, from Creative Commons. 

Information displayed on this page about Bergenia ciliata is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.