Red Hot Poker Plant For Sale Nz
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An exotic import that sizzles in the summertime landscape! Found wild in South Africa, this eye-catching plant was first brought to England in 1707 and is also commonly known as the Torch Lily. Small, tubular flower buds start out red, mature to orange and then fade to yellow. Dense spikes rise 48 in height on stout stems providing a dramatic display when grown in a space where the entire.
‘Percy’s Pride’ – with greenish yellow flower spikes, this looks good planted with Euphorbia mellifera that enjoys similar growing conditions ‘Nancy’s Red’ – produces bright red flower spikes between June and October.Team with other hot-coloured flowers, such as heleniums, rudbeckias and perennial grasses ‘Ice Queen’ – this is one of the palest red hot pokers available. These plants are being sold at a heavily discounted rate. And the home gardener ph 021-120-3318 new zealand, e mail da.la@xtra.co.nz. Red hot poker plants.
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Due to variations of climate, growing conditions and other factors beyond our control what works for us may not work for you.
Straight out opinion pieces are denoted by italics.
You may wish to skip these if you are politically correct (or easily offended).
Your mileage may vary
About us, the people behind Maple Glen
Tricks and cutting corners, Four people gardening 65 acres
The Native issue
Plant profile: Aruncus
Plant profile: Astilbes
Plant profile: Cardiocrinum
Plant profile: Colchicum
Plant profile: Galanthus. Snowflakes are NOT Snowdrops.
General comments, caveat emptor
Plant names are given with the botanical name first and a common name following in brackets.
Our climate here in Southland, New Zealand is maritime, USDA zone approximately 8b. Rainfall is reliable and distributed fairly evenly throughout the year. Soil is loam varying in depth from a couple of inches to several feet over heavy yellow clay. Soil is acid (only blue hydrangeas!)
Summer highs rarely exceed 30 degrees centigrade. Winter ground frosts typically are around -7 centigrade. We usually see snow once or twice in a winter but it rarely lies for any length of time.
All in all then, a good climate for growing and overseas visitors are often amazed at the range of things that will survive here but there are still plants that take exception to us.
- Plants from an alpine situation, even many New Zealand natives, dislike our humid, damp climate and our clay based soil tends to lack good enough drainage.
- South African Heathers (ericas) are no good here. By contrast, the Scottish, Cornish and Irish ones do just fine.
- Plants from dry climates (and sometimes even those from climates with a dry season) are out.
- Plants from a continental climate that like well defined seasons. If they grow at all they may not flower well. For example, summer heat and in particular, warm nights are required to make the flowers of Hemerocallis (Daylilies) open properly. We can grow the plant but it produces masses of leaves and does not flower well.
About us, the people behind Maple Glen
This site is about the garden but, very briefly...
| Muriel. Muriel started creating Maple Glen from a bare paddock. A plant collecting nut, gardening nut and bird nut ever since. |
Bob. Born Co.Antrim, Northern Ireland 1929. Bob emigrated to New Zealand in 1951 and was a herd tester before marrying Muriel in 1965. He once complained about shifting the same fence three years in a row. But not much. |
| Kimmy. Kim brings her own passion and enthusiasm to the garden, we can't wait to see her ideas take shape. |
Rob. Rob likes nothing more than something that involves the digger, water and lots of mud. To relax he wanders around in the 'golden hour' with a camera and pretends he knows how to take photographs. |
Our garden is never weed free but we strive to keep it reasonably tidy. Choosing 'plants for places', that is, plants that like where they are planted and thrive helps enormously. Weeding then mostly becomes the job of keeping the competition in check while new plantings become established.
Spraying. For many people this is a contentious issue. We have never used insecticides, preferring instead to let nature find a balance. The ladybird population fluctuates in step with the aphid population and the starlings and magpies do well when the grass grubs do. It sorts itself out.
To help control weeds along with manual weeding and the use of a petrol powered 'weedeater' we also employ a considerable quantity of Roundup, this being a herbicide that is reasonably safe and one we are familiar with. Roundup is particularly useful around trees and shrubs while they are becoming established. Well grown rhododendrons require little upkeep beyond a yearly wander through with a spade to find and remove the self-sown elderberry, blackberry and mulenbeckia vine seedlings that sometimes take root there. Roundup translocates. You only have to touch a leaf on a plant that is susceptable to it and the whole plant can die. This is an advantage, but only when the plant you touch with it is a weed! If we inadvertently touch a valuable plant with spray the easiest thing to do is immediately break off the leaf or twig that has been affected. Alternatively, grab a handful of clay and rub the spray off. If water is handy then the spray can also be washed off. |
| Mass plantings of things with a completely dormant period are also amenable to spraying around and in some cases, over. Done once a year, over time this has virtually eliminated weeds from the daffodil, bluebell, astilbe, colchicum and snowdrop patches. When planting this sort of garden though it is important not to mix plants with conflicting dormant periods. It can be tempting to try and combine things like this to extend the season of an area but it does not work! For example, Astilbes and Daffodils (as in a bed of astilbes with a daffodil border) do not combine well because the daffs are through the ground at just about the time the Astilbes completely die off. |
| Edges are kept with a combination of herbicide spray (Roundup), the petrol weedeater and a sharp spade. Used in late winter, the spade redefines curves and cleans out 'catching ditches' full of dead leaves. It also keeps the user warm on a cold, frosty morning! There is nothing that improves the look of the garden more than a run around with the mower. Blowing twigs and stray leaves off the lawns enhances the shapes of the edges and draws the eye away from any weeds that may be present! |
| Plants, sometimes even large trees die or are damaged in storms. It is inevitable, ongoing and entirely natural. As a result each year we remove many cubic metres of branches and timber from the garden. We also often decide to remove or cut back quite large trees and shrubs to improve views or provide more space for other plantings. The firewood is split, dried and used to heat our house in winter. Removing a golden pine |
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| In the late 1990s we bought an old secondhand Hitachi hydraulic excavator. As well as helping landscape new areas of the garden the 'digger' has also been used to create seven new large curving paths through established parts of the garden. This has opened out areas that had become overgrown, helped rejuvenate rhododendrons that had almost ceased flowering due to the shade of other trees and created dramatic 'long views' over areas of garden. The original paths were usually quite narrow and often had extreme sideways slopes as they had been dug solely with a spade. |
Gardens are made of living things. Living things grow and change. That's the point, that's a good part of the fascination and interest in gardening. We get so frustrated with visitors who want a plant that will always be covered in flowers, never be more than a metre high and never need pruning or watering...if that's what you want buy an artificial plant, or just paint a concrete wall!
In a similar vein are the people who want to 'have' a garden. As if it was a project you could begin, bring to completion and then forget about. It doesn't work that way.
The Native issueWarning! Politically incorrect views lie ahead!
| We are occasionally asked 'why don't you have native plants?' or 'where is your native garden?' Well, we do grow and value many New Zealand native plants in our garden. Among them are a very nice Agathis (Kauri) and many Arthropodium (Rock Lily), Astelia 'Silver Spear', Cordyline (Cabbage Tree), Celmisia (Mountain Daisy), Carex secta (Swamp Tussock), Chionchloa (Snow Grass), Clematis forsteri, Clianthus (Kaka beak), Dacrydium (Red Pine), Libertia, Myosotidium (Chatham Island Forget-me-not), Nothofagus (Native Beech), Pittosporum, Podocarpus (Totara) and Sophora (Kowhai). However, we grow these plants not because they are New Zealand natives, but because we like them. Because they grow well in our climate and location and have interesting habit, foliage or flowers. The same criteria by which we choose all of the plants we grow. To value one plant over another because of its country of origin seems to us about as sensible as valuing one person over another because of their country of origin, or to put it even more bluntly, to value a person over another because of the colour of their skin. Over the top? Perhaps, but there is definitely an element of xenophobia in the labeling of plants which have been declared pests in this country. Ongoing attacks on our garden by the local environmental council frustrate and sadden us. Just what is a 'native' anyway? Plants such as that Myosotidium are from the Chatham Islands, 700 kilometres to the east of New Zealand and are aclaimed as 'native'. If there was an island the same distance off our west coast that had been claimed by Australia 150 years ago would the plants and animals from there be 'exotic'? |
Birds and animals are sensible in a way that some humans aren't of course. A native Tui will happily and successfully nest in a hedge of Cupressus Leylandii (Leyland Cypress) and feed his chicks on the nectar of a South African Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) or a Tropaeolum (Chilean flame creeper). As will the native Bellbird.
Want to provide winter nectar for Tuis and Bellbirds in Southland? Plant an Australian tree. Eucalyptus cordata produces flowers even in the depths of winter and the hungry native birds flock to it. It will also grow faster than most natives and thrive in exposed, challenging sites.
New Zealand consists of some pretty remote islands but we are still (to the consternation of some pseudo-conservationists) on the same planet as the rest of you. The air in my lungs was over Australia the day before yesterday and will be over South America next week. We are all on the one world and we should be working to look after all of it rather than trying to wall ourselves off in our own tiny little corners.
I call these people pseudo-conservationists because as far as I can tell, that is what they are. They restrict their interests and endeavours to one tiny fraction of the worlds biota (and at times to the detriment of the rest of it). Why not take an interest in all living things? Why not care about the future of all endangered species wherever they are living and wherever they evolved?
Then, maybe, you can call yourself a conservationist.
Plant profile: Aruncus| Aruncus sylvestris (syn. A. dioicus) has a rather unfortunate common name: 'Goats Beard'. A shame, because it is a spectacular, hardy perennial for pond-side planting. Resembling a giant astilbe in flower the flowering spike is attractive at all stages, lemon green in bud, creamy-white in full flower and even after flowering as dead flower heads are much sought after by florists. In common with most pond-side plants, Aruncus dies completely away in winter to a woody underground clump. Division of the plant is best done then. Breaking one up however is an exercise in brute strength. A chainsaw would come in handy at times. |
| Astilbes are grown (and known) mainly for their spectacular summer flowers. However their place in the garden would be earned by their spring foliage alone. In nature Astilbes evolved to cope with a yearly dumping of silt from winter floods by always growing upwards. The new growing points each year form on top of their dead ancestors. In a garden setting and over the course of a number of years Astilbe clumps will literally grow themselves right out of the ground. This leads to the plant suffering severely from drought in summer and flowering very poorly. Therefore, every four or five years Astilbe clumps should be dug in winter while dormant, divided if necessary and the bottom 1/3rd of the clump (which will likely consist of nothing but dead and rotting roots) needs to be cut off with a sharp spade. The clump can then be re-planted deeper, with 5-10cm of loose soil over the top of it. Astilbe also benefit from a little fertilizer at this time, thus mimicing the effects of a layer of fertile silt left by a flood. Left, Astilbes in flower. Right, new spring foliage of Astilbe 'Fanal'. |
Red Hot Poker Plant For Sale Nz Craigslist
| Cardiocrinum (Himalayan lily). What to say about this largest and most spectacular member of the lily family? Near flowering size bulbs should not disturbed or transplanted. Cardiocrinum need time to develop the extensive root system necessary to hold that huge flowering stem up in a strong wind. Flowering size plants that have been recently planted out will need staking if they are not to blow over. In our climate Cardiocrinum will grow just about anywhere, though the leaf is prone to sunburn later in summer if the plant is growing in full sun. |
| Colchicum speciosum has the common name 'Autumn Crocus' but in fact they aren't closely related to true crocuses at all. Even more confusingly, there are true autumn flowering crocuses! Colchicum are really closely related to lilies - but whatever they are related to, they make a spectacular autumn show in our garden. As well as the large pink and white forms of C. speciosum 'The Giant' we also grow the double Colchicum 'Water Lily', and an interesting variety with veined flowers, Colchicum aggripinum. Colchicums like the same growing conditions as Daffodils and indeed make good companion plants for them. They prefer heavy, moist soil they do not like shade - even fairly high shade causes the flowers to all lean towards the sun. Colchicums spend more than half the year below ground and their growing cycle is most odd. The plant flowers on bare ground, showing no leaves in the autumn, these flowers die away and then late in winter the large shiny leaves begin to appear. Colchicum patches are solid with tightly packed leaves (with no room for weeds!) all through spring before dying away again in early summer. |
Plant profile: Galanthus
Snowdrops aren't Snowflakes
True Galanthus (Snowdrops) are sometimes confused with Leucojum (Snowflakes) but they're very easy to tell apart when you know how.
For starters, Snowdrops flower in July and August here and are truly winter flowers. Snowflakes flower at the same time as Daffodils, in late September. Snowdrops have a larger, showier flower on a much shorter stem than Snowflakes.
Snowdrops do require a colder climate than Snowflakes, perhaps that is why the latter are so often sold in their place.| A Snowflake: |
| A Snowdrop: |
| We now have many thousands of Snowdrops at Maple Glen, they form large drifts under deciduous trees and delineate curving borders throughout the garden. However, all of these bulbs originally came from just five bulbs imported by Muriel 40 years ago. One bulb each of five varieties. Muriel has worked every July to propogate and spread them with great success. Snowdrops are unusual bulbs in that they can be safely dug up and transplanted while in full flower. Doing this to a Daffodil (for example) would severely weaken it and perhaps even stop it flowering for a year or two but Snowdrops never seem to miss a beat. |
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Last modified on 15 May 2018
New takes on old favourites have added extra ‘flower power’ to tough, drought tolerant perennials
With water conservation on our minds in the post-Christmas months, it’s nice to know there are some stunning plants that will stand up to drier, hotter weather conditions and still look sensational.
There’s always a lot to do in the garden over the summer months and watering can be a labour intensive activity. But this is also the best time for alfresco entertaining, relaxing and enjoying your garden. Perennials are not only a great addition to garden borders; they also flower at a time when you are outside to appreciate them!
Here are three stunning perennial collections that will put on a lovely display, even if they get a little dry between drinks.
Little Hot Pokers
Flowers don’t come much tougher than the Red Hot Poker. The trouble is that at full size they are often too large for the average border and can get quickly out of hand.
Not so the new Dwarf Kniphofias, ‘Ember Glow’, ‘Fire Glow’ and ‘Pineapple Popsicle’. These diminutive hotties flower profusely on spikes just 50-65cm tall, and repeatedly bloom from spring right through to autumn.
Native to Africa, Kniphofias, also known as Red Hot Pokers or Torch Lilies, are drought tolerant, thrive even in relatively poor soils, and produce good amounts of nectar attracting birds when in flower. A well-drained, sunny position is the preferred habitat for these hardy beauties.
Dwarf Kniphofias are compact and just like their larger relatives, form clumps so they can be divided when fully established. Removing spent flower stems to ground level can improve plant appearance. These new varieties continue to send up further flower spikes over a far longer period than is usual for kniphofias.
Red Hot Poker Plant For Sale Near Me
Dwarf varieties ‘Fire Glow’ ‘Ember Glow’ and ‘Pineapple Popsicle’ are the first in a series of new release Kniphofias from the Living Fashion range.
Gaillardias
Also known as the ‘Carpet Flower’, the Gaillardia is a native of North and South America, and is related to the Sunflower family (Asteraceae). Renowned for their intricate patterns in rich reds and golds, these plants are also known as ‘Blanket Flowers’ after the brightly coloured blankets made by the indigenous people of the region.
Gaillardias are tolerant of poor soils and dry or even coastal soil conditions, and are relatively fast to establish. Two new Gaillardias have been released this season, Gaillardia ‘Red Sun’ and Gaillardia ‘Sun Flare’.
Gaillardia ‘Red Sun’ is a striking new hybrid with hot orange-red sun-like flowers massed over a compact foliage mound of green leaves. Gaillardia ‘Sun Flare’ features gold fluted flowers with a central red ‘eye’ massed over a compact foliage mound of silvered leaves. The seed head of ‘Sun Flare’ is also rather appealing, with a fuzzy appearance. Both of these varieties flower for up to six months from late spring through autumn, providing eye-catching and extended summer colour.
Sedums
Sedums, also known by the common name of stonecrops provide fabulous border effects, both with their foliage and their flowers. In spring, the foliage makes a great accent among earlier flowering perennials, and then the sedum flowers take the limelight throughout summer and autumn.
New releases this year to add to your Sedum collection are ‘Chocolate Drop’ for those who love chocolate foliage and ‘Crystal Pink’, which has a delicate, almost ice pink colour, that is very appealing in the garden bed. Their compact habit ensures these Sedums stay in good shape in the border as well as flowering ‘their socks off’. Recent releases ‘Mr Goodbud’ and ‘Hot Stuff’ also boast tremendous flowering performance.
Like all succulents, sedums store moisture in their leaves as a survival mechanism. Some attention to watering is needed initially but, once established, sedums are extremely happy with minimal watering.
For more information visit www.LivingFashion.co.nz