61214Okay, so this is not really the time of year that they should be blooming. Torch lily, Kniphofia uvaria, should bloom in the middle of summer. However, without watering, naturalized plants bloom when the weather prompts them to. Some wait out the warm and dry summer weather to bloom as soon as they get dampened by the first rains. Others bloom in spring, before things get too dry.

Flower stalks can get almost five feet tall, but are more typically about three feet tall. Small tubular flowers are arranged in dense conical trusses on top of these stalks. From the bottom to the top, red flower buds bloom orange, and then fade to yellow, and fold downward against the stalk. Different varieties bloom with more or less of these three colors, and at different times of the year.

The grassy foliage is not much to look at without bloom. By the end of winter, it can look rather grungy. It fluffs back nicely in spring, sort of like overgrown daylily foliage. Overgrown plants, or maybe just a few rhizomes, can be divided anytime. However, they should probably be divided just before the end of winter so that they can enjoy late rain, just before their spring growing season.


16 thoughts on “Torch Lily In Fire Season

    1. Ooh, that is an odd one. I just looked it up. I see a few cultivars in catalogues, but I still like the common one best It has such a bright color that can not be improved on. I like the yellowish white one too because I like white, but I do not think that I would plant it in my own garden.


    1. Yes, and simple and easy to grow too. When I was a kid, there were some on the edge of an orchard where a driveway used to come out to the road. The driveway was long gone, but the torch lily survived, and would probably be there now it the road had not been widened.

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  1. My mum always called them red hot pokers. I remember often seeing them in coastal places in England. I always liked them and had three in my garden. I now only have one and that hasn’t had any flowers for the past two years. They do not grow as tall and strong as in your area but they survive the winters if you are lucky.

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