Peter Dowdall: The flower that is a winter garden must-have

Whether you call it schizostylis, hesperantha or the kaffir lily, this is a flower to add a pop of colour to the garden

This hesperantha 'Sunrise' previously referred to as Schizostylis, is a beautiful pink-flowering form of kaffir lily. Picture: iStock

Which do you prefer, schizostylis or hesperantha? Well, no need to decide as they’re the same plant.

For years, what we may know as the kaffir lily was botanically named Schizostylis coccinea but for the last number of years, botanists and taxonomists have been all of a flutter and it is now correctly named Hesperantha.

From time to time this happens in the world of plant naming and what it really means to you and me is very little.

The plant is still the same. Still, beautiful flowers produced from late summer, well into the winter brightening up the garden during months when there is often very little, if anything else, in bloom.

Native to South Africa, schizostylis (I’m a traditionalist!) grow to between 40 and 60cm in height and freely produce stems filled with flowers of different shades of pink, red and even white.

They are a fantastic addition to any winter garden but where you position them is important.

It’s not so much that they are fussy in terms of where they will grow, for in my experience they are not.

The textbooks will often tell you that they prefer to grow in damp, river-bank soils but I have also seen them growing successfully in the driest of sunny banks.

In fact, a position in full sun is probably the only pre-requisite I would give it, after all, they are from South Africa.

No, the reason that I advise you to be careful in their positioning is purely for aesthetics.

You see, whilst beautiful in bloom, they can look a bit less than superb for much of the rest of the year.

The spear-shaped leaves which are semi-evergreen, meaning that they will remain above ground during all but the coldest of winters, can be quite untidy looking most of the time unless you are assiduous in your garden maintenance.

To keep them pristine will require you being out, nearly daily, with the scissors trimming off brown and damaged leaves. Failure to do so can leave you with a ragged, messy plant.

As is often the case with plants, to get the best out of them depends on what you plant them with.

I would suggest planting Hesperantha (better get with the 21st century) with low-growing evergreens, perhaps heathers, dwarf azaleas or similar. What you plant them with should be tall enough so that the foliage of the kaffir lily is largely obscured during the year but low enough to allow the beautiful winter flowers to show themselves off.

Perhaps try them with a vigorous summer-flowering perennial such as Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’, for this will overgrow the kaffir lily during the summer and die back in time to allow the pink or red blooms all the space in the world to show themselves off.

Hesperantha coccinea ‘Major’ is one of the most popular of the kaffir lilies. The flowers are a truly stunning rich red in colour and as with all of them, this variety makes a great cut flower.

Further confusion may lie in the name of this plant if you know your Latin. For “coccinea” is the Latin word for scarlet red, so you could be forgiven for assuming that all these plants would be red.

Irish Examiner gardening columnist Peter Dowdall. Picture: John Allen

In fact, while the straight species, Hesperantha coccinea, is red in colour, many of the varieties and cultivars of this plant are far from red.

The variety ‘Mrs Hegarty’ is a beautiful pink form and Hesperantha coccinea alba will produce, as the name suggests, pure white flowers, though I have found alba to be a slightly less vigorous variety to many of the others.

I have never found these to be difficult to grow, though you may need to take care of them during particularly cold winters, perhaps covering them with horticultural fleece during periods of severe frost or snow.

You can propagate them remarkably easily, lifting the clump out of the ground in late winter or early spring. The flowers should all be finished at this stage though there may still be one or two hanging on.

Divide the clump of roots using a spade or strong knife into smaller plants, each of which should contain at least five or six growing shoots.

Plant out these individual divisions straight away as new plants in their own right or you could pot them up as gifts for friends and neighbours.

It’s wise to do this every three or four years anyway, regardless of whether you want more plants or not as the plant will lose vigour over the years as the root system becomes too congested and dividing will rejuvenate the plant.

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