Chasmanthe: a Life Lesson.

Chasmanthe florabunda var. ducketii is a good example of why one can't always depend on printed material, both of the page or on the screen.

According to The World of Iridaceae:A Comprehensive Record by Clive Innes; this member of the large family of Iridaceae should flower, because it does in it's native habitat; in September.

Now the reason I wanted to plant and grow this here in downtown Geelong was because I saw it flowering in early winter, a time of the year when the under story of my yard, is ablaze with pinks and whites, from the many Cyclamen which are now finally naturalising here, some four years after planting.

When we lived in New South Wales, this was always on my to-one-day-get-list. Then we moved to Tasmania, and mid-winter or in early Spring, depending on which town you were visiting, Chasmanthe florabunda var. ducketii was flowering somewhat out of control on vacant lands.

So we learned to enjoy it when visiting, rather than wasting space growing this in our garden.

Yes, I have used the word garden for our plantings in Tasmania, because it was. Here, I feel it is more a collection of plants rather than a garden, which is why I mainly refer to here (Geelong) as the yard.

Having wished to punctuate my early winter understorey with the structure of this tall yellow flowering corm, I asked round the local nurseries to no avail.

Yes, I know I could write off, yet again, finding a source in the Aussie Plant Finder; but sometimes you just get sick of writing off to this person or that, only to find mixed results.

The pictures you see are corms flowering in June, which came from one of my generous readers in South Australia.

Given the wide range of climate this corm is found doing well in, perhaps the following observations are fairly valid.

It is claimed that Chasmanthe should be protected from frosts, but here in Geelong, the frosts do them no harm.

And in much colder inland Tasmania, on days when the soil would still be frozen after lunch, Chasmanthe still managed to naturalise. So it is fair to conclude that here in Australia, with our rather limited frosts in comparison to the Northern Hemisphere, that there is a place for experimenting with Chasmanthe as a garden subject.

It is also auggested that this does best in somewhat shady positions, as this is found in South Africa to grow in said conditions.

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