Crocosmia: Heating up the borders without Emily

The Crocosmias are sizzling hot and glowing like fiery embers in my late summer borders.  In the USA you'll  know them as 'Coppertips' or 'Falling stars' while here in the UK their common name is 'Monbretia'. The photo to the left is Crocosmia "Lucifer" from my garden.

 

They are natives from South Africa and derived their name from the Greek word krokos which means saffron and osme which means smell. Seemingly though I've not tried this myself if you rub the dry leaves together they smell of saffron.

Some of the newer varieties are not entirely hardy so its best to plant the corms deep in the ground  and preferably in the sunniest parts of the border to help them survive the winter especially if you are growing them in Scotland.  In some colder regions the corms have to be lifted every year or else covered in a deep mulch.

In hindsight I should have lifted the yellow ones in my garden as they didn't make it through the winter of 2009/10. Oh but isn't hindsight a wonderful thing! they had survived previous winters in the ground.......such is gardening!

Crocosmia crocosmiiflora  (click on photo to see non optimized version)

Autumn its a good time to divide larger clumps rather than in the Spring as the new shoots are growing underground and can get damaged.  I  also leave the long sword like leaves to die down naturally in the garden as they act like a nice warm blanket over the corms during the winter.  All I do in early spring is carefully clear away the dead leaves around the corms just before the new growth appears and give them a little feed of blood fish and bone meal.

Crocosmia crocosmiiflora

The earliest to start flowering in my garden is "Lucifer" in July. It has tall brilliant firey red flowers that are great as cut flowers. By the end of August it is just about finished flowering and has these wonderful looking arching seed head capsules which will change colour to ochre over the next few weeks.

Crocosmia "Lucifer" seed heads like peas in a pod

To tell you the truth it was years before this variety was grown in my garden. The name "Lucifer"  really put me off wanting to have it in my garden until I discovered that the name does not come from Hebrew or even from the Greek translation of the Septuagint, but from the fourth century Latin Vulgate meaning Venus and light bearer and somehow over the centuries has mistakenly become associated with the devil.

Crocosmia crocosmiiflora  (click on photo to see non optimized version)

As "Lucifer" is fading another variety is just starting to open its blooms with its ember glows.  I thought I had a clump of "Emily McKenzie" corms growing but now that they are in flower they look nothing like that beautiful variety which is a bit of a shame.  For now I'll leave them growing in the garden but I have a sneaky suspicion that they are the common Crocosmia crocosmiiflora which is a bit of an invasive thug. 

I made the mistake once of accepting these pass along plants from a friend and planted them beside the small clump of "Emily McKenzie" but they started to take over and had more leaf than flower. I thought I had dug them all out last year but obviously not and poor Emily must have been dug up aswell. 

Space is a premium now in the garden - I came to that conclusion this weekend as I walked around and around the garden trying to figure out where to plant a new aster!  So if I want "Emily McKenzie" to grace her presence in the garden again then this  thug Monbretia is going to have to get evicted at some stage. But for now I'll just enjoy these lovely coloured blooms. You can see a picture of the flower and read about the real Emily here.

Crocosmia crocosmiiflora

What flowers are heating up your late summer borders?

© 2010 on all text and photographs by Rosie at www.leavesnbloom.blogspot.com

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"Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse." Romans 1:20

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