Garden Guru: Firework display

Nancy's Pride is a reliable favourite. Photo / Supplied

Drive past many old smallholdings and there, erupting out of a forgotten tangle, blazing in the undergrowth on the fringes against a picket fence or down a bank, you are likely to spot one of our toughest and brightest perennial plants with blast-off drama _ red-hot pokers.

Like the agapanthus, with which you often see it associating, the red-hot poker _ or torch lily _ has been, until recently, something of a victim of its own success having been snubbed in finer gardening circles as just too common for border space.

With their tough, evergreen leaves and bold flower inflorescences, pokers (or kniphofias as they are correctly known) give the impression that they are coarse and thuggish, but in truth their ease of growth and strength of presence makes them worth a second look for the modern garden, especially with the range of ever more dramatic or subtle shades which breeders are dreaming up.

Pokers hail almost entirely from South Africa and share their good looks with fiery flowered African aloes to which they are closely related. In their homeland most enjoy sandy soils, dry winters and plentiful summer rain.

So if you are thinking of letting them back into your yard, plant them on a slight mound where they will not become waterlogged in the cold months and water them generously after Christmas _ then you'll have no-fuss strutting for years.

As well as being a magnet for nectar-feeding birds, the flowers are ideal for picking. Pests are rarely a problem and neither is shade but these plants do prefer their heads in the sunshine and with their leathery leaves they are eminently suited to coastal gardens too.

The bold architecture is perfect for contemporary gardens, but is equally good at pepping up some flabby and formless cottage-style affair so use them as accent plants where their strong form will complement the hard landscaping of buildings, walls and steps. Kniphofia caulescens is a species worth looking out for _ it has the advantage of handsome fat glaucous leaves as well as those knockout candles on top.

Traditional pokers were notorious for swallowing up rather a lot of garden space. Certainly the burning torches of Kniphofia rooperi, or the stately Kniphofia Winter Cheer, can swell to the proportions of an armchair.

However, many of the more modern forms are much more petite including the classic Milk Maid with its lemon and cream gentility, which works well with the pinks of purples of roses and geraniums.

Kniphofia Tangerine is a more zesty hybrid which is also compact in size.

Like most of the family, it looks much better if you can remove the spent heads regularly to encourage a succession of flowers and prevent inferior seedlings springing up.

Not long ago orange and yellow were about the only colour combinations available but today you can choose from deep reds, as in the reliable and fine Kniphofia Nancy, or the slightly taller Coral Comet to the soft, coffee and cream tones to be found in larger varieties such as Tawny King and the aptly named Toffee-nose, which work well when placed in front of chocolate-coloured natives such as varieties of coprosma and corokia.

If you don't like the funfair vulgarity of the two-tone hybrids, good pure yellows are provided by varieties such as Kniphofia Percy's Pride. You may not be able to source all these named types from a regular garden centre, but a snoop around your neighbourhood or the bargain backshelf of smaller nurseries should reveal some undiscovered gems.

Newer varieties of poker often have tidier foliage than the haystacks produced by the old brigade which were veritable hotels for slugs and snails, but with all types, it pays to trim back the leaves by half in spring and pull out dead leaves from the clump to encourage fresh growth.

Don't be tempted to do this tidy-up in autumn as plants can be prone to rot without adequate foliage to sup up winter rains.

Instead, let them sit tight through the cold months and get out now to attack them with your shears.

COULD DO THIS WEEK

* Deadhead spring flowering bulbs as they fade so that they don't waste energy-producing seed.
* Keep applying slug and snail pellets around the base of emerging plants such as hostas, clematis and delphiniums.
* Emerging climbers such as clematis will need a bit of guidance. Fan out new growth on trellis or wire so that it covers the maximum surface area.
* Consider replacing winter bedding in containers with something fresh.