About this cultivar:
Kniphofia 'Toffee Nosed' is a wonderful 1980s introduction from John Metcalf. Compared to the larger pokers, the narrow green leaves on this winner of the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Award of Garden Merit make a narrower clump. The tall, narrow flower stalks end in ivory flowers with an toffee-to-orange coloured top. Don't turn up your nose at this one.
- Position: Full sun, partial shade
- Soil: Almost any soil, grows well in Ballyrobert
- Flowers: July, August, September
- Other features: Bees and Butterflies, Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit (RHS AGM)
- Hardiness: Fully hardy - grows well in Ballyrobert
- Habit: Clump forming, Columnar or Upright
- Foliage: Deciduous
- Height: 75 - 100 cm (2.5 - 3.3 ft)
- Spread: 50 - 75 cm (1.7 - 2.5 ft)
- Time to full growth: 2 to 5 years
- Plant type: Herbaceous Perennial
- Colour: Green, orange, yellow
- Goes well with: Most things, try grasses
About this genus:
Kniphofia (nif-of-e-a) was first described in 1794 and is named after Johan Kniphof who was an 18th-century German physician and botanist who finished his magnum opus Botanica in originali in 1733. Apparently his name was pronounce 'Nip' not 'Nif'...
Commonly know as Red Hot Poker, it is a genus of South African native perennials that range from 1 ft dwarfs to 7 ft giants. They have a wide range of flowering times from mid-spring through late autumn, depending on the cultivar. The flowers are usually a bright orange and yellow colour; although there are many new cultivars in shades of cream, yellow, red, green, and even flourescent hues. Cream-hot-poker doesn't have the same ring to it though does it?
Most Kniphofia are quite easy to grow in bright sun to partial shade and most types of soil. It is not uncommon to find red hot poker plants growing and producing their beautiful flowers in long abandoned gardens or naturalizing in the countryside somewhere.
The cultivars we sell are not the cheap seed raised ones - but the tough cultivars that do well in our own garden. We plant them near anything, but I must say I quite like them combined with grasses.