For autumn colour, plant Hesperantha

Why not grow the crimson flag lily for long-lasting flowers in pinks, white and red? It's just the thing to add interest in the months to come

- Louise Curley

WITH their dew-covered grasses and cobwebs, fading flowers and mellow light, the chilly days of autumn are on the horizon. But that doesn’t mean your garden can’t still provide colour and interest for months to come. The key is to find space for plants that come into their own at this time of year, and one that definitely fits the bill is hesperantha.

These plants used to be known as the tricky to pronounce – and even trickier to spell – schizostylis. Then, in the 1990s, scientists discovered that their DNA was exactly the same as that of a group of plants already known as hesperantha, and schizostylis were absorbed into this genus. The old name still lingers, and you sometimes see them referred to as this.

It’s the common name, crimson flag lily, that gives a clue to their charms, however. A member of the iris family (Iridaceae), these plants are native to South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountains, where summers are wet and warm, and winters cold and dry. Here in the UK they make clumps of strappy green leaves in summer, followed in late August and early September by the first flush of starry, lily-like blooms.

Vertical interest 

Each slender flower spike can produce up to 12 flowers and, along with the foliage, these will add vertical interest to a border. Flowers come in a varied range of pinks, plus an elegant white variety and the vivid-red blooms of the exotic ‘Major’. If the weather is mild, they will continue to flower until December – I’ve seen them blooming on Christmas Day in a neighbour’s garden.