Cracking Crocosmia

Late summer and the Crocosmia is cracking hot in my front garden. Crocosmia are one our favourite summer plants and we have several cultivars.

First up is everybody’s favourite, Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’. This always flowers before any other Crocosmia in my garden and starts flowering early July. It really is a devilish red, and grows up to 1.5m high.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer'. A collection of red flowers coming off a central stem. They are a very bright red, kind of open star-shaped with darker red tones down the middle of each flower.
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’
Crocosmia 'Lucifer'. Same red flower, only here you can see three different stems with many flowers not yet opened, apart from four at the top. Behind them are the green sword-shaped leaves and some purple flowers.
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

Flowering soon after, c. mid-July, in a delicious orange colour, is Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Carmin Brillant’, which is a shorter cultivar, growing to 60cms high.

Focus on a single orange flower from the front, with it angling slightly to the left. It has a couple of flowers open behind it and several buds still waiting to come out. The flower is also star-shaped and the petals sweep back. The centre a mix of yellow with some red 'stripes' extending out along the petal. It has yellow stamens and carpels sitting out in front of the petals.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Carmin Brillant’
This shows three flowers at different angles, facing left, right, and down left. In a couple of them you can see the red striping coming from the middle more clearly.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Carmin Brillant’

From mid-late July, the first yellow Crocosmia, C. x crocosmiiflora ‘Irish Dawn’, begins to flower. It has gorgeous golden yellow flowers and it also stands c. 60cms high.

Three golden yellow flowers coming off a central stem, facing left, right and down right. Like the others, this is star-shaped and it has matching golden yellow carpels and stamens.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Irish Dawn’

It sits in front of Salvia Armistad and I love the way the yellows and purples compliment each other. This one is really clumping up nicely, and I think it might need some division in Autumn.

A clump of the golden-yellow flowers, with purple flowers on a different plant, the much taller Salvia, behind it. To the middle right is a small bird bath, and behind all of this is a beech hedge.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Irish Dawn’ and Salvia armistad

From the beginning of August, Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Red King’ does it’s thing. It’s a slightly more muted red compared to ‘Lucifer’, and it has some darker maroon markings.

Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Red King'. A group of red flowers with slight purple tones in part, on a long stem. They are a slightly more muted red compared to the previous 'Lucifer' flowers. You can kind of see that deep in the centre of the flowers that the petals there take on a yellow-red tone. The background is out of focus green foliage.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Red King’
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Red King'. A single red flower, looking at it from an angle. The carpels and stamens come right out and are orange and yellow respectively.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Red King’
This is the same Crocosmia, with a collection of flowers on a stem, with a honey bee approaching the stigma and stamens which have pollen on them.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Red King’ with a honey bee

Bees love Crocosmias, and this honey bee wanted to demonstrate this!

Crocosmia ‘Sunglow’, and I think we can agree, it does glow. This is a deeper golden orange-yellow compared to ‘Irish Dawn’, and it’s also a bit taller, c. 70-80cms high, and it starts flowering a couple of weeks later, around the beginning of August.

A single star-shaped golden orange-yellow flower open, with several stems beside it, filled with buds that will come out soon. The sun has captured the flower and perfectly shows it glowing!
Crocosmia ‘Sunglow’
Two flowers, one open and looking down, the second below it only halfway out. You can see the depth of the golden orange-yellow, with green foliage blurred behind it.
Crocosmia ‘Sunglow’

My latest flowering Crocosmia, from mid-August, is C. ‘Twilight Fairy Crimson’. This is the shortest one I have, it’s only about 40cms high.

A focus on a single flower that is crimson-scarlet, with three unopened buds behind it. The flower is kind of star-shaped and the petals sweep back. It has a darker crimson centre with the yellow-orange stamens and carpels sitting out proud in front of the petals.
Crocosmia ‘Twilight Fairy Crimson’

It’s slightly overcome by other plants at the moment, so hasn’t flowered as well this year. That should be resolved when the big clump of Rudbeckia next to it is taken out and split up in Autumn, to allow other plants including this one, a more room to grow.

Having cultivars that flower at slightly different times, means I can extend the Crocosmia love to from July to roughly mid-September. The photo below, taken 7th August, it shows several of the Crocosmia cultivars at different stages of flowering.

A part overview of the front garden which show different areas planted with flowering Crocosmia, as well as other yellow and purple flowering plants mingled amongst them. On the middle right is the Quince tree, underplanted with green-yellow fine grasses.

Crocosmias are such cracking bright flowers. And when I do some rearranging in Autumn (splitting up the Rudbeckia and removing the Stipa), I think I’ll have room for more.

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