Plant profile: kniphofia
From a pale-lemon cultivar given to Beth Chatto by Cedric Morris to the soft tawny ‘Toffee Nosed’, new breeding has taken kniphofia far beyond orange
John Hoyland discovers there is subtle beauty to be found in many of the newer kniphofia cultivars
However skilled and creative we are with our planting schemes, the artifice of the garden can never compare with the majesty of plants growing in the wild. On a trip to South Africa I was awestruck by the sight of hundreds of incandescent f lower spikes glowing in the evening light. They were the flowers of Kniphofia, the aptly named red hot poker, and on that visit, I saw many more species, some with pale-lemon f lowers, some soft pink but most with the vibrant orange with which the plant is most associated. Seeing them in their native habitat opened my eyes to the splendour of the genus and how wonderful they might look in a garden setting if grown among grasses and other southern hemisphere plants rather than the tatty clumps I remember from the suburban gardens of my childhood.
The plant that first grabbed my attention was Kniphofia rooperi, and it remains one of my favourites. The bright-orange flowers are globular rather than elliptical, about the size of a tennis ball. It flowers in September and October, and I grow mine among the deep-blue flowers of Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’. Both plants look stunning bathed in the golden light of autumn. Breeders were initially slow to produce new cultivars and hybrids but there are now dozens available. As well as the usual red and orange bicolour flowers, cultivars have been bred with flowers that range from pale cream to bright lemon, from soft pink to deep red, and in sizes that span 45cm tall to giants that reach 2.5m.
At the delicate end of the scale, K. ‘Little Maid’ has creamy white flowers in July and August and narrow, grassy foliage. It was raised by Beth Chatto in the 1970s from seeds given to her by Cedric Morris. Its elegant appearance has made it a popular plant but it will only thrive in mild and dry areas. Perhaps the most striking member of the family is K. ‘Nobilis’, which, at over 2m tall, is a fantastic sight in gardens large enough to accommodate it. The flowers have a distinctive hat of pendulous buds. Some nurseries sell it as K. uvaria ‘Nobilis’ and for many years it was sold as K. ‘Prince Igor’, which is in fact a shorter plant with the typical elliptical-shaped flower.
The similarity of so many cultivars can be confusing. The late writer and plantsman Christopher Lloyd used to tell the story of asking a nurseryman the difference between two similar cultivars and getting the answer “a shilling”. With some Kniphofia hybrids the difference between them is so marginal that it might only be price that sets them apart, although now far more than a shilling. K. ‘Gladness’, for example, and K. ‘Bees Sunset’ are, to my eye at least, indistinguishable. In the garden, kniphofias are as at home in traditional mixed borders as they are in more contemporary prairiestyle planting schemes, and the good winter drainage of gravel gardens provides ideal conditions for many. The chunky foliage and thick stems of K. caulescens, which would suffer in wet situations, is an ideal candidate for gravel gardens. Grown in isolation it is an imposing plant.
The strong vertical line of Kniphofia stems are natural companions to grasses, and I have seen a splendid group of Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ threaded among clumps of pale-yellow kniphofias, where the glaucous sheen of the grass almost reflected the bright light of the pokers. The tropical look of kniphofias lend themselves to exotic gardens where their fiery colours are best seen against the foliage of dark-leaved cannas. They are an obvious element to hot borders along with dahlias and vibrant crocosmias, but kniphofias are companionable plants that look equally at home with pale achilleas and pastel-coloured phlox. However you grow them, make sure you plant them in large numbers so as to hint at how splendid they look in the wild.
• Author John Hoyland is a plantsman and garden writer. His recommendations for the best kniphofias can be found over the next five pages.