Kniphofias produce high-impact flowers but they’re also surprisingly easy to maintain
over winter – in colder areas you may need to employ some fleece or straw as well.
In spring, clip back rotting foliage and clear debris – sometimes slugs and snails will have made their home here and they can do damage to emerging spring shoots. Apply a fresh mulch. For propagation, you can divide them in spring.
Their dramatic and architectural appearance makes them useful plants in various types of planting schemes.
They are equally at home in a Red hot pokers like a moist, well-draining soil cottage garden or prairie-style planting, as well as putting on a show in contemporary and Mediterranean schemes.
Each flower head is a collection of small tubular flowers – a good source of pollen for bees – so you can include this plant in a wildlife-friendly plot.
They also look the part in tropical plots. At the Eden project in Cornwall, there is a national collection of them where more than 100 different cultivars are planted on a sunny slope amidst grasses, Chinese windmill palms (Trachycarpus) and other South African natives like Agapanthus and Hesperantha.
Extensive breeding has resulted in a wide variety of cultivars being made available, from tall to small, early to late-flowering and in colours on the red, orange and yellow spectrum.
Choice ones to look out for are ‘Green Jade’ (jade green flowers), ‘Bee’s Lemon’ (fresh lemon yellow flowers), ‘Toffee Nosed’ (orangebrown-tipped cream) and ‘Timothy’ (salmon pink).