Like many beautiful flowers, Crocosmia (also known as Montbretia) is native to the Cape region in South Africa and a genus of flowering plants in the Iris family, Iridaceae. Crocosmia are deciduous cormous perennials with long, spiky sword-shaped leaves and four to twenty funnel-shaped flowers on a horizontally branched stem in summer (somewhat similar to Freesias).

 

Crocosmia bulbs (technically speaking Crocosmia corms) are hardy perennial plants, which form underground clumps. Crocosmia corms form vertical chains with the oldest, largest corms below the younger, smaller corms. The “chains” of corms are easily separated, helping them spread quite rapidly.

 

Crocosmia corms are planted in mid-spring and produce flowers in summer. Bulbs & beyond currently offers three different varieties of Crocosmia, the best known and ever popular red “Crocosmia Lucifer”, the yellow “Crocosmia George Davison” and the orange/yellow “Crocosmia Emily McKenzie”. When fully grown, Crocosmias can reach over 100cm in height and up to 50cm in width. 

 

 

Crocosmias are ideal for those gardeners who like to “plant and forget”. Few garden flowering plants naturalise better than Crocosmias. They look absolutely stunning next to other perennials such as Lavender, or other summer bloomers such as Canna Caballero or a large number of Dahlias in our collections. When planting your Crocosmia corms, spread them in a shallow hole of around 5cm deep and around 10cm apart. Crocosmias like full sun as well as partial shade so it shouldn’t be hard to find a suitable spot in the garden, as long as the (moderately) fertile soil is well-drained.

 

Tip: As with some of the other flowering plants in the Iridaceae family, Crocosmia bulbs produce great cut flowers (and lots of them!). Plant some extra Crocosmias in the back of the garden for cutting. Cutting doesn’t harm them and they will come back next season.