Crocosmia - peoples experiences

BenDover

Would be helpful to understand people experiences of Crocosmia Lucifer.  I had it in my garden and whilst it was growing the green leaves in the spring and early summer, and then flowering in late June or into July, it looked great, but then as soon as it finished flowering, the leaves immediately started to go brown and it looked a right mess.  I therefore gave up on it and removed it from my garden.  I do get the odd one coming up but I just pull them out.

I was at RHS Wisley today and noticed they have Crocosmia growing in their trial beds and spotted that Lucifer is in full flower, which is ahead of most other Crocosmia, but already the leaves are starting to go over even before the flowers have finished.  I now know it wasn't just the ones in my garden that did this, and feel a bit relieved it seems to be consistent with this particular hybrid.  Whilst at Wisley I did spot that there was a Crocosmia called Mistral which could give Lucifer a good run for its money in terms of size and intensity of the red.  Anybody got any experience with Mistral and confirm if it suffers from the same issue as Lucifer in terms of leaves browning immediately after flowering.   Is the leaf browning the same on all crocosmia immediately after flowering?

februarysgirl

I have loads of different types of crocosmia (including Lucifer) and I find that the leaves go brown when they haven't been watered enough.

peteS

I've grown crocosmia in the past, but found the leaves an absolute magnet for every leaf devouring insect around...slugs, snails, caterpillars, even leaf cutter bees loved 'em. The flowers were fab, but the foliage was just a shredded, holed mess by mid summer.

edhelka

I have the basic ones. They start in mid-July and continue through August and September, dying back in October probably, I don't really know because by that time, it doesn't matter. The foliage appears again in spring and keeps appearing everywhere, healthy and nothing eats it. Dreadful plants.

JennyJ

Same here with the common montbretia type. It seems impervious to everything including drought. I haven't tried the fancy varieties though.

Nollie

I find Lucifer a really impressive cultivar, it’s tall but doesn’t spread much, nothing seems to eat the leaves and they stay green until the tail end of summer. I do keep them well watered though, so @februarysgirl might be right there. I cut down the flowering stems when over, keep watering and sometimes get a small second show. Mine have been in flower nearly three weeks now and still looking healthy:

KeenOnGreen

We used to have lots of Crocosmia in our previous garden.  My favourites were Zeal Remembrance, Rowallane Yellow and Star of the East.  They were in pots and troughs, and well watered, so the only problem were caterpillars.

In our new garden we had Lucifer and Paul's Best Yellow and they didn't thrive at all, as we don't water our large garden that often.  In the end we got rid of them, as they looked awful.  Ironically, the garden had lots of the species Crocosmia (Montbretia).  This thrived and became invasive, so we got rid of it all.  I now wish we'd kept a little bit.

@BenDover Trecanna nursery in Cornwall are the Crocosmia specialists in the UK.  If you are thinking of getting cultivars that are more drought tolerant, they would be worth a look.

Fairygirl

I built an extension over Montbretia. It still didn't stop it 
I find most cultivated ones are fine, but I have other planting in front to hide any damage they might get, although I don't find them too much troubled by slugs or anything else,and we certainly have a huge slug/snail population.

I've never had foliage browning early, but that's maybe down to our climate here.

februarysgirl

KeenOnGreen said:

We used to have lots of Crocosmia in our previous garden.  My favourites were Zeal Remembrance, Rowallane Yellow and Star of the East.  They were in pots and troughs, and well watered, so the only problem were caterpillars.

In our new garden we had Lucifer and Paul's Best Yellow and they didn't thrive at all, as we don't water our large garden that often.  In the end we got rid of them, as they looked awful.  Ironically, the garden had lots of the species Crocosmia (Montbretia).  This thrived and became invasive, so we got rid of it all.  I now wish we'd kept a little bit.

@BenDover Trecanna nursery in Cornwall are the Crocosmia specialists in the UK.  If you are thinking of getting cultivars that are more drought tolerant, they would be worth a look.

I have Rowallane Yellow which is flowering now. It's my favourite yellow cultivar but such a pain to get hold of. I've also got Star of the East but nothing showing on that so far. 

I bought quite a few new ones last year, some from Binny Plants and some from Barnes Nurseries. Was really impressed with Emily McKenzie, the photos don't do the flowers justice.

Nollie

I love Emily McKensie too, such large flowers, startlingly orange. Being a later flowering one, mine are just starting to bud. They are meant to be one of the better behaved ones, but I find it spreads more than Lucifer. Easy enough just to pull out the wayward ones tho.

cornelly

We grow Lucifer which is looking glorious even with the terrible weather, it doesn't begin to die back until the autumn, with us flower beds are never watered, nor lawns, only when needed the veg plot,