Montbretia
AngieSmash
Posts: 26
in Plants
I've just been digging up a load of bracken only to find that it was hiding a load of montbretia. I really want to clear the area but feel bad about ditching the montbretia. Should I replant it elsewhere or can I chuck it without guilt?
0
Posts
Chuck without guilt! It will be a common or garden variety, probably. If you want Crocosmia there are good varieties, but choose them when in flower.
Chuck it , but I bet you will find it popping up again next spring , it seems impossible to get it all out !
Thanks. Have made a start and will finish tomorrow as just started raining ☔
Strictly speaking there isn't one - it's a different name for the same species. But habitually we tend to refer to the short orange flowered form that has gone feral in many parts of the countryside as 'montbretia' and the better behaved cultivars (Lucifer' being the most famous) as 'crocosmia'. The semi-wild variety is pretty enough but if it's happy it is rampant and smothers everything else and that makes it rather dull. I would guess it's unfortunate invasive spread into the countryside arises from it's vigour - people find, like AngieSmash, that it's getting everywhere so they dig up clumps and chuck it out and off it goes, wandering free.
Monbretia/crocosmia is one of the few plants to throw into your landfill bin and not in the compost or green bin.
No - I have lots of crocosmias. Lovely plants. There are specialist nurseries for them, different sizes, lovely colours of flowers and leaves. Lucifer must be one of the most popular garden plants around.
It's just the small orange one that doesn't flower for long and gets totally out of hand that's the problem.
If you look it up on the RHS site you'll see most of the 'crocosmias' are called montbretia (including lucifer) so it's by no means certain that the plant you bought as 'montbretia' is an invasive one. If it didn't have a name other than montbretia it may be - the nicer cultivars all seem to have names. But it's hard to tell. Did it flower? Do you know what colour it is?
I wouldn't panic - even the thuggish one isn't THAT bad. You have to keep an eye on it or it gets out of hand. But there are plenty of other plants you could say the same of - lemon balm, for example, or borage.