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Some Plants Like It Hot!

© Emily Levitt

One of the auxillary pleasures of gardening , and working with flowering plants, is cutting and arranging them. At least, I 've found this to be true; messsing with flowers in vases used to be a real pain, until I had something like an epiphany (or a mid-life crisis, depending on your perspective) and found that my acquired design skills in planning layouts for gardens could be translated to a centerpeice.

Principles, such as "contrasting textures" may be applied to a project as small as a tiny vase containing three blooms of purple lisianthus, a bit of yellow coreposis, a sprig of rosemary, and a piece of Dusty Miller. Add a little draping ivy to this grouping, and you have a microcosm, which when expanded into full growth, would look just as lovely in a sunny garden.

What a concept!

I love a "hot spot" (something bright in color) in a vase and in the garden, which brings me to the subject of this article--montbretia, or crocosmia, as it is know in more current gardening vernacular. Lots of people had this bulb in their gardens when I was a little girl, lo those many years ago. It was almost as common as orange ditch dayliles in a favorite neighbor's garden, and was just as easy to grow. The hotter the weather, the happier these bulbs seemed--as long as there was plenty of water.

I have since discovered that montbretia lives much longer on the stem than its casual companion daylily, and makes a heck of a good cut flower. It's related to the commom gladiolus, but has much slimmer--and more graceful--stems than glads. This makes crocosmia easier to use in arrangements, and the garden.

There are more varieties of it on the market than I believed possible, expanding its' availabe color palettte from a deep reddish-purple to pale yellow, with bloom sizes from tiny to several inches in diameter. Some cultivars have dark throats, adding depth to their use in containers. Mixed plantings can be really spectacular, almost explosive with the variety of coloration.

Bronze foliaged cultivars are also becoming available in some areas. Even without flowers present, this can add a new dimension in color---as a background for other plants, or a repeat for barberry and nandina. Neato torpedo!

Montbretias originated in South Africa, which explains why it does so well in the
Deep South. Direct sun and high temperatures keep it feeling very much at home here. Should you live in a really hot zone, consider keeping crocosmia in morning sun. Cooler extremes of hardiness yield good overwintering results with only light mulch. Some sources site crocosmia's hardiness as Zones 6 through 10; others say
7 through 9. Check your Heat Zone rating as well as your USDA Zone, to get the most realistic spin on what will work for you. This bulb will thrive in much of the United States, when managed properly. I'd even use it in planted containers, if it didn't work so wonderfully well in my garden.

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