WITH their sword-shaped foliage and elegant branching heads of flowers in sunshine-rich colours, crocosmias, most of which are found in South Africa, make wonderful garden plants. Surprisingly, given that there are only seven species in the gene pool, there are plenty to choose from. They come in varying heights and their foliage can differ from neatly pleated bright green to soft brown or grey. They begin to flower in July, with the popular bright-red Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ being one of the earliest. The giant lowered honeyed orange ‘Star of the East’ (1910) and ‘Castle Ward Late’ (pre-1985) will often linger into October.
Flower and petal shape vary, differences that have attracted plant breeders ever since the French nurseryman Victor Lemoine (1823–1911) crossed a stream-side species, C. pottsii, with C. aurea, a woodland species in 1879. Their offspring became known as Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora or montbretia. The common name honours a French botanist who accompanied Napoleon when he invaded Egypt between 1798 and 1801. Ernest Coquebert de Montbret (1780–1801) died of the plague in Cairo, at only 21 years, but he is remembered through the flowers. Most early crocosmias are montbretia hybrids and many are, frankly, weedy.
Denne historien er fra March 24, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 24, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
