Red-hot pokers: the brief and brilliant garden

In principle, red-hot pokers, properly known as kniphofia, would be my favourite flowering plant.  They make me smile just looking at them.  And they come in the bold and brilliant colours: orange, yellow, red.


I like to present you with a success story.  Here I can't, or at least not entirely.  The variety I want hasn't been bred yet.  All I have is one that has pleased me to a reasonable extent.


For me, the problem with kniphofia is that they do not flower for long enough.  A good alstroemeria will give months of flower but a good kniphofia will give you only a few weeks.  I love pokers so much that I would like them to be around for a far longer period.   So there is still a job for the plant breeders to do.

 Early on, I went poker-mad.  I purchased three orange pokers: Kniphofia uvaria "Nobilis", Kniphofia "Fiery Fred" and Kniphofia rooperi.  Each had their merits. 

 "Nobilis" is very tall and impressive.  I fancy that I have seen it as a garden escapee all over Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast, the flowers serving as a landmark.  

A canna lily (which sadly did not overwinter for me) growing cheek by jowl with Knipofia "Nobilis"


Kniphofia rooperi strutting its stuff in October

Kniphofia rooperi flowers in the autumn in one glad rush, and looks sublime on a sunny autumnal day.  I got rid of both these pokers because they are not cost-free.  Yes, you get a few weeks of excellent flower, but then you get nine months of dull foliage and bareness in the winter.  The foliage has little to recommend it and is a bit messy too.  It's a lost opportunity to grow something outstanding instead. 

The best of the three proved to be "Fiery Fred".  It has a pleasant slightly egg-shaped flower,  Early in the century I had one outstanding year of "Fiery Fred" when it bloomed for a long period and dominated the focal bed.  The next year however its flowering disappointed me.  I am a ruthless gardener and consigned my large clumps to the bin.

 

Kniphofia "Fiery Fred" on the right, Verbascum "Christo's Yellow Lightning" and the ubiquitous Alstroemeria "Indian Summer" on the right
 

I thought I had got rid of it, but "Fiery Fred" is what we call a bombproof plant.  A small bit survived and thrived.  I kept trying to eliminate it but somehow it kept coming back.  It knew better than me - and it was right.  It is a good plant, and I am glad to retain a smaller patch of it.  I now enjoy its tangerine blooms each summer when it flowers for several weeks.  I can recommend it.

That said, I am still not completely satisfied.  I yearn for flowers as good as "Fiery Fred" but flowering for three or four months of the year.  It's not impossible.  Immense strides have been made with other flowering plants.  There is one fairly new variety called Kniphofia "Mango Popsicle" which is said to be long flowering; I tried it out and found its flowers too scratty for my tastes.  So there you go: room for improvement!



 

 






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