A blooming swath of red-hot pokers (aka torch lily, aka Kniphofia) caught my eye last November.  Seriously – November!

That seems crazy.  Its broad, strappy foliage resembles the Kniphofia that blooms in our garden in May– six months earlier.  Who knew there were such varieties?  And how can I get some??

In the cool overcast of autumn, these kniphofia flowers stand up much longer than our spring bloomers.

When it starts to snow on Christmas Eve, I’m concerned.  On Christmas Day, the snow sparkles on the garden, telling the world that winter is here.

In my experience, snow cover is the tipping point when red-hot pokers disintegrate into a slimy mess. (Fortunately, they come back in spring! Some Kniphofia are actually cold hardy to zone 5 – that’s to -25 C  🙂 I can’t imagine them growing in the Tiffindel ski area of South Africa, but apparently, that’s home. )

By Boxing Day, the snow is gone.  I’m ecstatic.  Don’t get me wrong – there is something magical about a White Christmas — but followed by a Green Boxing Day is perfection!

Mysteriously, all of the Kniphofia survive– leaves and all!  Relief!
Now, I’m curious to know which temperature precisely brings on their disintegration.

In Victoria, we have a School-Based Weather Network.  Most schools host tech monitoring the individual climatic pockets around town.  It’s very handy.  There’s a station just a block away. I prefer to confirm rainfall & temperatures uber-locally and not count on the information coming out of Victoria Airport, 25 km away.

As it turns out, the temperatures through the storm barely dipped a degree below freezing.   We’ve had plenty of mornings like that through December, just without the snow. Perhaps it’s temperatures like -5 or -10 C that knocks the Kniphofia back?  We get those temperatures here, but rarely.   Any idea?

Now, at the end of January, the blooms around the corner from us are just wrapping up.  It’s amazing, really:  3 months of colour.  I admit they’re looking a bit ratty, but I’m desperate for flowers at this time of year.  🙂

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PS– Fast-forward to January 2024… It’s snowed again. (It’s snows each winter, but the Kniphofia stayed green.) This time, the temperatures dipped to -10 C. That did it. The Red Hot Pokers collapsed. Some went a bit slimy, others just seemed dehydrated.

Temperatures on one side of the shrub border seem to have been colder than on the other side. Perhaps wind direction made a difference?  By early February, the Red Hots on that ‘other side’ are already starting to recover…

By early April, I’m not seeing new shoots from the colder side of the shrub border.  My fingers are crossed.  I’m hoping that by May, they’ll be happily blooming again.

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