Crocosmia - Disporopsis

Crocosmia All £3 / £4 unless stated

aff. aurea (£3.25 / £4.50) Very large, completely nodding, orange, spidery flowers in September. Said to be from Magaliesburg. Exciting.

'Baby Barnaby' Branched stems with orange flowers, blotched maroon. 60cm. Sarah says I must emphasize how very nice it is.

'Debutante' Peculiar, but attractive pinky orange. Quite early, but with staying power.

'Dusky Maiden' Browny orange, bronzed leaves, 50cm.

'Fire Jumper' (£3.25 / £4.50) Dan Hinkley's red/orange bicolor. Excellent, and new to the UK. Unusually many flowers per stem.

'Gerbe d'Or' Warm yellow with bronzed leaves.

'Mrs Geoffrey Howard' Large tomato red flowers, quite tall. 

'Rayon d'Or'  Early season, bright orange-yellow, marked red at base, outward facing flower.

masoniorum 'Rowallane Yellow' (£3.25 / £4.50)  Rich yellow, upward facing flowers on arching stems; very fine. 60cm.

'Sir Matthew Wilson' Vigorous, with big red flowers.

'Star of the East' Very large, open, slightly inclined orange flowers.

'Sultan' Hot, rather burnt, red tones, bronzed leaves.

'Ellenbank Firecrest' From a distance looks like 'ordinary' x crocosmiiflora which seemed to be blasting out of every Westmorland cottage gateway this August, but tidier close to, since it isn't clogged with dead flowers. 60cm small flowered orange and red bicolor.

'Zambesi' (£3.25 / £4.50) Best of the African Rivers hybrids. Very tall and long flowering. Many large outfacing orange flowers.

Cyclamen coum 'Tilebarn Elizabeth' £3.50
Leaves flushed silver all over, flowers pale pink stained much deeper towards the edges.

Cyclamen hederifolium seedlings from Ruby Strain £3.25
A good proportion are flowering deep red-pink. Autumn flowering.

Cyclamen repandum good form £3.25
The nursery trade generally fails to deliver the tough, strongly purple-pink flowered, scented form which naturalises freely in some old woodsy gardens, notably at Knightshayes, but here it is thanks to Peter Chappell who has it seeding around at Spinners.

Cymophyllus fraserianus £3.50
Small North American sedge whose flowers are an improbable pure white, against the dark foliage. 15cm. Probably needs acid soil. Slow.

Cyrtanthus breviflorus £3 / £3.50
A small bulb from the Drakensberg. Starry yellow flowers 2-3cm across in spring. Easy in pots, do-able outside.

Cyrtanthus brachyscyphus £3 / £3.50
Semi evergreen, like mackenii, with orange-red tubular flowers at rather unpredictable times.

Cyrtanthus contractus £3.50 / £4
Glossy scarlet flowers, long tubed and flared at the mouth, but so much bigger than the previous or the next. Summer growing. Few.

Cyrtanthus mackenii £3 / £3.50
Soft pinkish orange, tubular flowers in this form, in late spring, on 20cm stems. Pretty much evergreen. Good in a pot.

Datisca cannabina £3 /£4
'Fine foliage plant for sunny positions in our warmer counties' writes GST. 'Might be described as a herbaceous substitute for a bamboo, because of its graceful arching stems, clad in luxuriant pinnate leaves.' What can we add? 2m tall.

Deinanthe bifida £5
Strange and lovely herbaceous Hydrangea relative. White, waxy, weirdly shaped flowers . The rough, pale green leaves have a characteristic broad notch at the apex. 50cm tall, humus rich soil in shade.

Dianthus 'Elizabethan' £3 / £3.50
A garden pink, just to show you never know what to expect in this catalogue. Large, scented white flowers, edged and centred in very deep maroon, on upstanding 30cm stems. Unusual and effective for us at the edge of a bed of old roses.

Dicentra cuccularia 'Pittsburgh' £3.25
In this form of the classic little woodlander, the flowers are a bit larger and are palest pink with orange 'mouths'.

Dicentra macrantha £3.25 / £3.75
The usual 'bleeding heart' flowers are fewer and larger than in any other species we know, and amber in colour. Very delicate foliage, bronzed and finely divided. A hardy, winter dormant plant for shade, but it needs protection from cold winds once in growth.

Dicliptera suberecta £3 / £4
Branching woody based perennial with grey-hairy leaves and plentiful tubular orange flowers over a long summer season. 30cm, for sun. Seems hardy here, but easy from cuttings as an insurance, as you might with a Salvia or Diascia.

Dierama 'Coral Bells' £3 / £3.75
Warm pink flowers in summer, from silvery bracts. 1m+. Like all these, for a sunny place which doesn't dry out in the summer.

Dierama Blackbird seedlings £3 / £4.50
'Blackbird' was an old seed strain from the defunct Slieve Donard nursery in Northern Ireland, characterized by broad, tubby, dark purple flowers. Most of what's around nowadays is 'seedlings ex...', whether they tell you that or not. We do, and know that while most have these qualities, others vary in the direction of the more usual pink garden hybrids. Typically lm+ in flower.

Dierama dracomontanum £3
A short (45cm) plant with upright spikes of brick red, tubular flowers. Divisions. As with the other species, it needs a sunny site which does not dry out in summer, and once established is best left well alone.

Dierama 'Guinevere' £3 / £4
A vigorous, pure white flowered garden hybrid with typical arching habit. Divisions of established plants.

Dierema 'Knee-high Lavender' £3 / £3.75
Interesting, free-flowering hybrid, flowers as described and upward facing.

Dierama 'Mandarin' £3.25 / £4
Arching garden hybrid, purple-pink tepals reflexed like a martagon lily. From Gary Dunlop, and highly desirable.

Dierama 'Puck' £3 / £3.75
A nice hybrid of the dracomontanum persuasion, but a little taller and more vigorous, and rather pinker in flower.

Dierama 'Tiny Bells' £3 / £3.75
Floriferous, dwarf (40cm), pink. From Michael Wickenden.

Dierama 'Westminster Chimes' £4
A taller hybrid, well over 1m, with unusually open, bell shaped pale pink flowers. Rare.

Dietes African relatives of Iris and Moraea, rhizomatous evergreens tolerating only a little frost, so for the mildest gardens or pots given winter protection. In the wild, many come from shady habitats.

Dietes bicolor £3 / £3.75
The Peacock Flower needs reasonable moisture in winter and spring, but tolerates summer drought. Plentiful cream, brown-blotched flowers in spring. The hardiest species, but still only for milder gardens. Popular for general planting in Mediterranean regions.

Dietes grandiflora £3 / £3.75
One of the loveliest species. Tall, to 1m, the flowers have the classic iris profile, white, with a yellow blotch on the outer perianth segments and pink tinged style crests. Few.

Dietes iridioides £3 / £3.75
Horticulturally, a slighter version of grandiflora.

Digitalis 'Glory of Roundway' £3.00 / £3.75
A beautiful perennial hybrid, reaching 1m or more in height, with lots of smallish creamy pink flowers. Forms a meaty clump given rich, fertile soil. Never as widely grown as it deserves, being quite slow to propagate - you really have to cut the clumps up with a sharp knife.

Disa tripetaloides £5
Diminutive terrestrial orchid from South Africa, raised ourselves from seed to flowering size (as Disa novices we take inordinate pride in this fact). This almost certainly means it's an exceptionally easy species. Our recipe for beginners' luck is: pot culture, grow in peat opened up with perlite, occasional very dilute liquid feed, stand in a shallow tray of rain water (never, never tap water) in shade with air movement (i.e. outside our north-facing back door) and let them be. They survived being frozen solid last winter, unscathed, although I'm not sure this is to be recommended. Some other evergreen species seem to able to be kept this way, but none have proved so easy from seed. Pretty little white flowers flushed lilac-pink on wiry 15cm stems.

Disporopsis aspera £3 / £4.50
This species has the stems strongly and strikingly flecked dark red: chunky, and a shade taller than the above.