My Blog List

Monday, July 7, 2014

MY FIRST MONTBRETIA

My grandparents had these flowers growing all alongside their driveway in England. I call them montbretia although in the USA they are known as crocosmia. They were easy care and seemed to like the sandy well-drained soil of a coastal garden. I was thrilled to see the first blooms on the plant this morning.


Last year when friend Cindy, of My Corner of Katy, visited my garden she brought a nice clump of these from her garden. I am so thrilled to have my first blooms. Thank you Cindy. They go very nicely with a backdrop of those everywhere Texas ruellia. There is no sandy well-drained soil here, although our alkaline soil is well drained. I hope that from now on I will have these every year.

9 comments:

  1. Lovely! I need to plant some here in the Massachusetts garden. In my parents' Michigan garden they would not take for years, but from the last batch I planted two years ago one clump seems to finally be slowly multiplying.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have that same flower and really enjoy it. Beware that you might have 20 by next year. It's a nice problem, isn't it?
    David/:0)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a lovely form and color. And you're right - they are perfection with the ruellia as a backdrop. Passalong plants are so much fun, especially when they also trigger fond memories of gardens (and gardeners) past.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My Crocosmia are nice this year, but I had the devil of a time getting them started. I found that the problem was that they have zero tolerance for the least bit of clay in the soil. I dug up what I could salvage of the plant and made a large place for them without any clay. I generally won't totally replace the soil for any plant, but made an exception for these as a sort of experiment since I already had them.
    At least I won't have to be concerned that they become a thug here. I doubt they will survive outside their prepared area. I love the blooms.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a pretty bloom, especially with the purple backdrop.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Totally jealous! I, too, fell in love with crocosmia during recent trips to England. Do you know where they're sold around Austin?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember buying some of the corms a few years ago. Some of the ones flowering now may be from those corms. If they spread as I hope they will I will let you have some.

      Delete
  7. Just beautiful! I remember Crocosmia growing wild in the creek in Mexico, when I was a kid. So some years ago I got some bulbs and they came up, but they died on me! :( Maybe I water them to much. I just went and got me a plant a couple of days ago, so I will see how it does this time. Again your picture is gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  8. They are lovely. Our soil is very heavy but perhaps they would do well in the island bed, which is improved soil and raised up for better drainage.

    ReplyDelete

I love your comments unless they are spam comments which will always be removed in comment moderation.