Kniphofia 'Shenandoah'
Kniphofia 'Shenandoah'• Click here to visit our Main Plant List page for current availability of this plant
• common names: torch lily, red-hot poker
• flowering season: May
• height: 3 to 4 feet
• Light requirements: full sun, half a day of sun will do
• Soil requirements: average to rich and well drained
• Water requirments: will survive in a dry landscape although it will grow better and flower more profusely with weekly deep watering during summer
• Growth habit: a slowly widening clump that will keep growing wider and wider until it is several feet across
• How to propagate: divide in spring or early summer
• Leaf type: long, tapering leaves that are somewhat course in their growth
• Ways to use it: grows well with other flowering perennials in the sunny garden
• Special characteristics: its upright, spiky flowers have lots of character and are a focal point among other flowering plants, especially contrasting nicely with mounding and cushion shaped perennials; it doesn't need much care once planted other than regular watering; gardeners in climates colder than USDA Zone 6 should give it winter protection such as covering with a mulch or a large basket turned upside down and weighed down with a large rock on top
About fifteen years ago I purchased several plants of this from a nursery located in the Appalachian foothills of Virginia that specializes in growing perennials. This plant can take a greater degree of winter cold. It blooms in late spring to early summer. The flowers are orange-red and yellow, with a height of three to four feet. It grows robustly, spreading wider over the ground and eventually reaching massive clumps. We are guessing that this plant has been grown in the Shenandoah Valley for many years, being passed from neighbor to neighbor, and eventually reaching the attention of the nursery that sold some to us. The plants from Virginia are identical in every way to a kniphofia growing for many years around our town of Sequim, three thousand miles from Virginia. Both of these are forms of Kniphofia x praecox, a plant that is thought to be either a cross of K. uvaria with K. bruceae, or K. linearifolia with K. bruceae. The torchlily produced from this cross, K. x praecox, has not only been shared from neighbor to neighbor, but from coast to coast and also around the world. In England, a variety named 'Atlanta,' is likely to be the same plant. And even though it may have different names in different places, is one and the same thing. Although it matches plants we previously had, we have kept the propagating stock of 'Shenadoah' separate from the others, so what we would send you would be a division of the orignal plants from Virginia. USDA Zones 6 to 9, and possibly Zone 5.