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You can plant them in the trough now, Jack,just make sure that they don't get waterlogged and have good drainage. I gave some to a friend last January and she potted them up in a large container. When I visited her again later in the year she rushed me around to her back garden to show me the Irises blooming.......one happy lady!!

 

Commonly kniwn as "Red Hot Pokers".......


"Kniphofia
Colourful and exotic-looking, red-hot pokers flower over many months and make spectacular garden plants. They do well in coastal gardens and can be very long-lived.

Quick facts
Common name Red-hot poker
Latin name Kniphofia
Group Perennial
Flowering time March to November
Planting time March and April
Height and spread 20-210cm (8in to 6½ft) and 20-100cm (8in to 3ft)
Aspect Sun
Hardiness Hardy to half-hardy
Difficulty Easy

Cultivation notes
Red-hot pokers make rewarding and often long-lived garden plants. Their distinctively-shaped blooms are among the most spectacular of hardy flowers, and their long season means that by careful plant choice gardeners can enjoy them between spring and late autumn.

Recent breeding work means there is a larger range and improved colours available to gardeners, with smaller habits and neater foliage. Colours range from red and orange through yellow to green and even brown and pink.

Planting in borders and containers
Kniphofias are generally easy to grow given the right conditions. For optimum performance choose a spot in full sun with fertile, well-drained soil that isn’t too wet over winter. Smaller, narrow-leaved cultivars such as ‘Bees' Sunset’ are easier to combine with other plants than the larger sorts, and grow well in pots and containers.

Aftercare
To help keep your red-hot pokers healthy;

• Tidy plants in mid spring
• Water container-grown plants regularly over the summer
• Deadhead after flowering

Overwintering
Leave the plants alone until mid-spring as the old growth will protect the crown of the plant. Once the weather has begun to warm up, any dead or untidy-looking foliage can be pulled away – this will provide the opportunity to check for slugs and snails which can damage developing flowerheads and young growth. Rosettes of more tender species can be protected with fleece duing cold periods in winter.

Propagation
Although some modern seed mixes have been developed that will flower from seed in their first year, for the sake of speed pokers are generally purchased as pot-grown plants. They can easily be propagated by divisionin spring – this is the only way to increase named cultivars as they do not come true from seed.

Cultivar selection
Heights given are the flowering spikes, which are always taller than the foliage.

‘Bees' Sunset’ AGM (syn. ‘Shining Sceptre’) - incredibly colourful poker with orange flowerheads that fade to yellow as they age, borne on handsome bronze stems. Height 70-130cm

Kniphofia caulescens – one of the most striking species with beautiful, glaucous grey leaves and coral pink to orange red buds that open to creamy-yellow flowers. Used to great effect in the Dry Garden at Hyde Hall. Height to 90cm (3ft)

‘Elvira’ – this cultivar has the useful attribute of producing sterile flowers, so they don’t turn brown before they fall off, giving it a much ‘cleaner’ look than some of the others. Flowers are pure orange and continue from July until the first frosts. Height 60-100cm (2-3ft)

K. northiae AGM – the best poker for foliage – its agave-like rosettes lend an exotic touch. Much hardier than it looks. Height up to 170cm (70in)

K. rooperi AGM – unmistakable round flowerheads of orange, red and yellow. Although it blooms in winter in its native habitat, forms in cultivation including ‘Maxima Globosa’ flower in September and October in the northern hemisphere – making them valuable in the autumn garden. Height 60-155cm (2-5ft).

‘Tawny King’ – chosen by Christopher Whitehouse, author of Kniphofia - the complete guide, as his favourite cultivated poker. Tall and dramatic with bronze stems and flowers that change from dark, smouldering orange though apricot to creamy white. Unusual and remarkable. Height 90-130cm (3-4ft)

K. thomsonii var. thomsonii 'Stern's Trip' AGM – an unusual poker with delicate, widely-spaced flowers. These start dark red-orange and become brighter in colour as they open. Not reliably hardy outdoors in the UK, except in mild areas. Height 90-140cm. (3-4½ft)"

 

Easy, Rhizomes!!......you can pot them up in a container, or in the borders, in March. Plant them 3 to 4 inches deep where, ideally, they'll get full Sun. Don't cut them back once they've finished flowering but wait until they've turned brown.

 

You can either put them in a reasonably size pot in, say, a group of 3, or in the ground. They do look better in the border in groups of 3 or 5. If you want to pot them on now and then later plant them in the borders then it's not a problem.

 

I stopped by LIDL's today and bought 4 x trays of 10 Primroses at £2.99 for a tray, they gave me a discount of 98p so they actually cost me£10.98 for all 40 of them. I also bought two pots of 3 Hyacinths in a pot for £1.69p per pot to back up the ones I already have in the Kitchen. I've already got another two trays of 6 Primroses in the Green House, and probably the same number in pots outside by the Gable End of the House...........so I'll be busy once the weather turns warmer enough for proper gardening outside.

 

Every year I buy around 30 pots of Tete a tete from some Market Trader friends to plant in the surrounds of where my Wife rests to celebrate Spring which she loved with a passion. So, today, I went into Nantwich and found the pots ready for me but while I was there I noticed they had some good quality Hamamelis [ yellow and red]. I've always wanted to have at least one in the borders but never got around to it for some reason. Anyway, I bought the red variety "Rubin" from them




at a discounted price and then later phoned them up to ask them to get me another one [yellow variety] when they're in Nantwich again, next Thursday,as a birthday present for a friend.

 

I've not seen the red variety of Witch Hazel before We just have the yellow and it's looking very good at the moment. We have it alongside a path so that we can get the scent as well.