Garden Centre

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Kniphofia – a lily by any other name?

If I failed to appreciate my Tamarisk, I make up for it when it comes to some other garden flowers that others consider vulgar – I love gladioli, both the natural and the hybridised kind, and the gaudy Kniphofia with its plethora of common names, is a perennial favourite.

Kniphofia is also know as Tritoma, Red Hot Poker, Torch Lily, and Poker plant – it’s African in origin and has bright rocket-shaped flowers in many shades, not just the red/orange/yellow combo that I personally favour. Nor does it have to be a four foot tall spire of showy brightness that I adore – there are cream and green kniphofias, pale yellow ones, and even some miniature ones. Lovely I’m sure, but why, I wonder, would you bother with such subtlety when there are a thousand other summer bloomers that will deliver those minor garden notes? If you want a Stravinsky-like blurting of incandescent colour, go for the very early (June) or very late (mid-August) classic kniphofias and enjoy them for their spectacular, firework-like, brilliance. Actually, what they most remind me of is the Rocket ice-lolly I used to eat as a child!

Kniphofias are not difficult to grow at all if you understand that they get a lot of water in the growing season in their natural home, but none at all in winter – they insist on good drainage, especially in the colder months. Give them that, and you’ll have a firework display of your own.

Labels: knifophia, red hot pokers, torch lily, tritoma

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:37 AM 0 Comments

---

Monday, June 16, 2008

June garden roundup

An ariel view of the garden today – just to see how we’re doing. Well the lawn is awful, that’s the first thing to say, and despite all the best efforts of himself, it rarely looks better than adequate. It doesn’t trouble me, but he views it as a slight on his manhood! The problem is that when the previous owners of our house laid the lawn, they didn’t prepare the undersoil adequately – there are rocks and half bricks and who knows what about six inches under the surface. Our only recourse is to dig it all up, relay the underlayers, removing all the rocks, and lay new turf: for now we are putting up with it.

The palm tree which was three feet tall when we planted it five years ago is now over twelve feet! Obviously it likes its location, although it shouldn’t as it’s on the edge of the pond – we are wondering what will happen if we lop it down to three feet again: my instinct tells me that it will simply shoot up from the stump, but it’s a bit of a drastic exercise and I’m trying to find out whether anybody’s tried such extreme tree surgery. It has wonderful spikes of fragrant flowers this year, and it did last year too, so I wouldn’t want to lose that in the long term, but twelve feet is a bit much.

The knifophia that we relocated from the bottom of the garden to the top is doing magnificently – it makes a huge splash of colour right next to the steps and has the added advantage of stopping small inquisitive dogs trundling off the steps and into the undergrowth, hunting frogs. They don’t like its spiky leaves while I appreciate its showy flowers.

The most amazing thing though is that block of silvery foliage on the far left edge of the pond – it’s Lambs Ears and from a tiny cutting which had just two miniature leaves, it has, in two years, become – well even clump is hardly adequate terminology – it’s more of an array really.

Overall I’m happy with my June garden – I’d like to see more early colour, but there’s no bare patches (except in the lawn!) and, after eight years of constant change, there’s nothing I want to rip out.

Labels: garden june, garden palm tree, knifophia, lambs ears

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:44 AM 0 Comments

---