Gladiolus - Heloniopsis

Gladiolus
We dislike and avoid the tender, large flowered hybrids, but delight in the huge diversity of the wild species. The winter growers need protection from severe frost, although they will survive -5°C at night now and then. We recommend Goldblatt & Manning's authoritative and beautiful 'Gladiolus in Southern Africa' for anyone wanting to get their head around the bewildering diversity of this genus. Mostly in small numbers, we'll probably have to limit several to 1 per customer, but if you don't ask you won't get.

Gladiolus cardinalis £3 / £3.75
Large, vivid scarlet flowers with three white flashes. The flower stems tend towards the horizontal and cry out for a rock across which to flop out.

Gladiolus carinatus £3
Delicate blue-lilac flowers, with yellow too on the lower tepals; deliciously fragrant. Slender, around 40cm tall. We've grown it in pots so far, but it's said to make a good garden plant in winter-rainfall parts of South Africa - sun and good drainage here. A traditional cut flower in the Western Cape.

Gladiolus dalenii A relatively stout plant, summer growing and a good doer in the open garden here. Flowers on 40cm stems in late summer. It is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, with much variation in flower colour. Two colours this year:

i) Yellow - a soft primrose £3 / £4

ii) Orange £3.50 / £4.50

Gladiolus lilaceus £3.25
A particularly interesting plant from the Cape winter-rainfall area. Relatively tall and large flowered, related to the familiar and growable G. tristis, it has an amazing adaptation for pollination by moths. The flowers are red-brown by day, but quickly turn mauve at sunset and release a heavy clove-like scent. Weaker stemmed than tristis and better in a pot.

Gladiolus miniatus £3.75
Coastal limestone endemic from the Western Cape. Low, but rather broad leaved plants, good sized salmon pink flowers on out-turned spikes in spring. Summer dormant. Very scarce in the wild and in cultivation. Few.

Gladiolus oppositiflorus £3.50 / £4.50
A plant of the summer rainfall area of KwaZulu-Natal and the eastern Cape. A rather sturdy plant, this form is about 50cm tall with salmon-pink flowers in two ranks, but not in a single plane, typical of inland populations. Probably a good bet for the open garden, as dalenii. Few.

Gladiolus papilio £3 / £4
Vigorous, hardy summer grower. Slaty purple flowers on 1.2m stems. Grows a treat in our wet clay.

Gladiolus splendens  £3.25 / £4.50
An extraordinary and exciting species from the western Karoo, with bright scarlet flowers in two ranks, adapted for sunbird pollination. Rather than bore you with a botanical description, let's just say they don't look much like a Gladiolus. A slender plant, 50cm or taller, which we normally grow in pots in order that they don't get waterlogged in winter, and can be kept dry during the summer dormancy. Nick Macer (Pan Global Plants, Glos.) has had this from us and is growing it very well in his fabulous raised bed, made from 60 tonnes of magnesian limestone - and nothing else - in the company of agaves, hesperaloes, and the like.

Gladiolus tristis £3.75
Easy winter grower; fragrant cream flowers on 75cm stems which don't flop, in early spring. Potsfull. (Potfulls?)

Gladiolus undulatus £3.25
Fairly tall and stout, with extremely long-tubed flowers, cream, marked red on the lower tepals. Winter growing, from moist stony ground.

Gomphostigma virgatum £3 / £4
A woody based South African plant with a twiggy upright habit and narrow, silvery, rosemary-like leaves. Spikes of white flowers in summer. For a sunny place.

Haberlea rhodopensis AGM £3 / £3.50
Rosette forming gesneriad for a cool, well drained spot, perhaps a shady crevice in the rock garden, or a sink behind a North facing wall. The dark, hairy leaves are always attractive; lavender flowers in drooping heads.

Hedychium
The Ginger Lilies are among the most exotic looking herbaceous plants you can hope to grow in a British garden. Great thick, creeping, ginger smelling rhizomes send up 'canes' with bold, alternate leaves in two ranks, around the beginning of April here. Flowers are in more or less dense heads at the tops of the stems, and are mostly very showy and fragrant. No trouble once you have a regime which suits them where you are, so read these notes on hardiness!
No Hedychium is a straightforward hardy perennial right across the UK. On the other hand, none of these is an out-and-out heated glasshouse subject. All need a fertile soil with plenty of water in the growing season. Some species are evergreen in the wild, but this is only possible under warm glass in Britain, even in Cornwall. We allow all ours to become fully dormant in winter, which has the advantage of preventing pests overwintering: others find that a tortrix moth caterpillar, which munches holes through the rolled young leaves, can get the upper hand if the plants are overwintered in growth. Once the stems have been frosted, we cut them off at the base and protect the rhizomes. For pot-grown stock, this entails keeping them faitly dry, and avoiding extremes of frost. Under the glasshouse bench is many people's choice; we pack the pots into stacking trays in an unheated polytunnel or shed. Plants grown in the open garden may need a protective mulch: for big old clumps, the cut down dead stems, loosely mounded are efficient and effective, as used at Overbecks, Salcombe; use other materials (straw, bracken etc) as available. What can you get away with in the open ground? The hardier ones are viable in the south of England and beyond, but microclimate and mulching are everything. Gardeners in central London or right on the South Coast can get away with a great deal. Some flower rather late, and early frosts can lose you the flowers, even if the plant survives. This is where a cool conservatory really helps, as well as providing a place to overwinter the dormant plants. One of the most effective specimens of I've seen was in a big pot on a patio, trundled into the greenhouse in winter. Plants supplied have been growing in 2 litre pots since division in spring.
Starting with the hardiest ones, Hedychium densiflorum (£5) is a toughie, but atypical. The flowers are many and small, packed into narrow 15cm spikes. They are a lovely intense burnt orange colour, but don't have any real fragrance. Free flowering, and one of the first to flower. Came to us as 'Assam Orange', but that has rather looser inflorescences and flowers a more watery shade. Hedychium 'Stephen' (£6), collected by Tony Schilling in Nepal, is often considered (notably by Schilling himself) a form of densiflorum. Many others find this hard to believe, and speculate that it's a natural
hybrid. Flowers larger than densiflorum, cream with orange, and lightly fragrant. Very nice, quite hardy, but slow to propagate. Hedychium coccineum 'Tara' AGM (£6) is pretty hardy, and early too. It has more typical spidery flowers in orange red. It's showy and popular. Schilling's again. (H. coccineum var. angustifolium (£5) is prolific and has valuably different narrow pointed leaves, but we don't have a clear opinion about ease of flowering outdoors, yet.)

Hedychium spicatum (£5) has fragrant flowers with white and orange bits (I know, I know); it too is reckoned to be one of the hardier ones.

H.s. 'Singalila' BSWJ 2303 (£6) is a form with nicely bronze tinted leaves,  broader, and up to 2m tall, from N. India.

Hedychium yunnanense (£5), notable for being just as chunky as the others, but much shorter: palest yellow flower with red stamen. The first to flower.

Hedychium sp. coll. Keith Rushforth (£5) is broad leaved, quite tall and looks midway between spicatum and yunnanense; very hardy.

Hedychium forrestii (£5) is a tall, floriferous, white flowered plant which we've seen growing and flowering in the open garden in Hampshire.

Hedychium gardnerianum AGM (£5.50) is a bit less hardy and a classic for the conservatory or mild garden. Thick stems, imposing foliage, and wonderfully fragrant flowers towards the end of the school summer hols. Pale yellow flowers, with brilliant red stamens. This form rarely exceeds 1m here. Scent strongest after dusk, when it fills our polytunnel. Seeing it flowering outdoors near Kendal in August, presumably plunged
after overwintering inside, gave us food for thought.

Hedychium coronarium (£5) is also deliciously fragrant, with pretty, pale flowers. Around the same hardiness level, the anonymous Hedychium pink hybrid (£5) has rather small flowers with a 'tropical' scent in an unusual flesh pink.
Next, some of Tom Wood's many interesting hybrids from Florida. We understand that he's tried to combine some of the exotically fragrant tropical species with the tougher Sino-Himalayan ones, but is justifiably cagey about their exact parentages. We find that they survive the winter well, but tend to be very late flowering and so benefit from conservatory conditions. Not all of his bulk up quickly, but these three do.

Hedychium 'Goldflame' (£5) is around 1.5m tall: fragrant white flowers with a bold yellow splash.

Hedychium 'Filigree' (£5) is very dwarf, well under 1m, with white and yellow flowers.

Hedychium 'Elizabeth'(£5) has lovely raspberry pink flowers, marked orange, but it really needs to be inside, warm, to get worthwhile flowering.

Helenium 'Rauchtopas' £3 / £4
Yellow rays, backed orangey brown. Taller, to 1.5m.

Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer' AGM £3 / £4
The great thing about this 1m tall cultivar is the extraordinarily rich and changing colours of the flowers. The rays open a light orangey yellow. As they expand they become increasingly streaked with bright red, ending up a rich burnt orange. Flowers at all stages mixed over the plant are unfailingly interesting. The more I see others, the more I like this.

Helenium 'Zimbelstern' £3 / £4
Red-brown flowers expand and age to yellow.