Forum home› Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Kniphofia

seakaleseakale Posts: 142
in Plants
I have several knofophias in our garden.  One variety must be over 40 years old as we take cuttings from time to time to keep it going.

They are flowering their heads off, and bless them, the bees love the yellow part of the flower spear as it’s loaded with pollen.  Kniphofia don’t need watering, feeding, but love full sun and dry conditions.  If I cut the flower spears down after flowering they may give us a second flowering.

I have Bees Lemon in garden , a later flowering, took 6 cuttings from it this spring.  It’s planted in lavender, blue spire, and blue scabious.


«1

Posts

  • berardeberarde Posts: 147
    Knifofia seemed to go out of fashion as happens in gardening, and do come up rather often in lists of people's of disliked plants; I think some people find them a bit vulgar. As you say they are tough, visited by insects and they have nice colours. I did have a slug eat half a stem one year, but the leaves seem slug resistant which is a major criterion for a garden plant for me
  • seakaleseakale Posts: 142
    it does it doesn’t matter if some people regard them as vulgar, the bees love them, if we don’t have bees, we won’t have us
  • februarysgirlfebruarysgirl Posts: 835
    Got to admit, I'm not a fan of them although I did buy the orange vanilla popsicle variety last year. Don't know what's going on with it though, it hasn't shown any signs of new growth at all. I pruned the dead bits a couple of months ago but nothing :(  
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Nothing showing on my Wrexham Buttercup either @februarysgirl and I’m up to a month ahead of the UK. Bees seem to leave them alone here, far more interested in nepeta, salvia, agastache, even roses (the ones with more open blooms) so I wouldn’t call it an essential bee plant...
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • seakaleseakale Posts: 142
    Maybe my knifophia is such an old variety, it has retained it’s bee liking qualities.

    when visiting a local private educational establishment garden some years ago in Mid June, I asked the head gardener why there were no delphiniums in the beds, his reply was that the garden manager thought they were common, I kid you not.  How can plants be common? 

    Do fellow gardeners regard some plants, shrubs etc as common and or vulgar?  Please reply it’s a fascinating subject
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I started a lighthearted thread on ‘naff’ plants a couple of years ago, so common/vulgar equally fits... note my qualifying that it’s all personal taste/you should plant what you like bit!

    https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/comment/1953954#Comment_1953954
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    I don't like them because the foliage always seems to look messy. Nothing to do with vulgarity.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • februarysgirlfebruarysgirl Posts: 835
    Well, I'd resigned myself to mine not flowering this year but when I was walking by yesterday, I saw four flower heads coming up 😊
  • 1634 Racine1634 Racine Posts: 568
    @seakale

    i’m just really starting to get into them.  Planted some Bees Lemon and for the last month I have been enjoying this magnificent Moonstone



    How/when do you take cuttings?
  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 758
    I love them. How can you not like fifffnopppia. They make a pretty good wind break as well...

Sign In or Register to comment.