Crocosmias!

I have been in love with the dramatic color and form of Crocosmias for years.  Starting in the middle of June, when the late spring flowers are bowing down to the heat of the summer, these glorious perennials start blooming.  By having different varieties, that bloom can extend for several weeks, through July, and even into September.

I will start with 'Lucifer.'  The brilliant red-orange color, on the top of 3-4 foot tall stems hold their color in the intense sun that straddles the summer equinox.  Having a garden which only receives shade from the small tree planted in its center, it is important to select colors and plants that can deal with the intense sun. With the wiry stems, the flowers seem to be floating above the long, narrow leaves.

This large clump of plants started a a few corms 4 years ago.  In that short time they have multiplied and spread out rapidly, creating a large drift of foliage.  In fact, one of my favorite nurseries warns that Lucifer "actually crowds itself out so quickly that it rarely flowers after the first year in warm climate gardens."

I have not had that problem, yet, but I have had the problem of too much sun. Here you can see that same foliage, just weeks later, after it has endured too much sun and too little water.  I once thought that if I just watered it enough, everything would stay green and beautiful. But I no longer think that is true about this variety.  I need to move this into somewhere else in the labyrinth with less sun.  If is really does keep multiplying too fast, requiring annual sorting and replanting, I will probably get rid of them. It would be  shame, because I love it, but there are many others that I have been trying.  So, there are three others.

Here is the clump of 'Walrhead' which I purchased and planted in spring 2010.  Again, there were 2-3 corms, which have multiplied somewhat, but not as aggressively as the Lucifer.  The plants are much shorter than the Lucifer, with leaves reaching up to about 2 feet.  I am disappointed in that the flowers begin blooming much more down within the foliage, but it is still early in its bloom cycle.  The flowers didn't begin opening until the second week in July, almost a month after Lucifer.  Last year the period of new flowers was relatively short, but it was still establishing itself, so I hope it will live up to the description that it will continue to bloom until September.

Here is a close-up of the flowers.  The petals open up wider, and face outward, creating a more substantial presence than the tubular and upward facing flowers of Lucifer.  The color is not a bold, but still keeps its power when the full sun hits them. More importantly, there seems to be no problem with the foliage turning brown from either too much sun or too little water.  I hope that is true, because I cannot control the sun, and even with our attempts to keep things watered, there is little that can be done when there are periods of drought, like this summer.  The soil is very sandy, and doesn't hold water.

But there are more to discuss, so moving on.

Here is 'Star of the East' which was purchased last year.  Plant Delight nursery describes this as a 1912 introduction, which says pretty amazing things about its good qualities.  What I have noticed is how far it has thrown out new plants in just the year.  I only planted one set of corms, and you can clearly see two clusters about six inches apart, and there is a third behind them.  It has yet to reach the 32 inches in the catalog description, and there are only a few flower stems, but it has only been one year.  I planted this near the bench, and the flowers really do well with a close inspection.

See!

As you might have figured out by now, I have a lot of pictures to show.  That is because I kept taking pictures, but never got around to putting them up for you to see.

So jumping ahead, the final Crocosmia is 'Solfateree' which was also added into the garden last year.

This is clearly a much later blooming variety, just beginning to open its flowers past the middle of July.  It is significantly less prolific than the other varieties, with only a few new corms in the year.  It is staying much shorter than the others also, and I am uncertain about how it will do in the labyrinith.  So, I will need to just watch, wait and see.