Recommended Pond Plant

[Mikey]

Below is a plant that I don’t recall ever seeing as being sold or recommended as a pond plant.  However, I recommend it as a low maintenance plant for your pond, especially for your streams.  It’s low maintenance because in my case no soil was needed…..

I received this bulb, River Lily (Hesperantha coccinea), a few years ago as thanks after giving someone a plant.  The person who gave it to me said she grows them in her soil in full sun in Washington.  Based upon its common name and because my research indicated it grows along river banks in South Africa I decided to plant it in the water on the banks of my small pond stream.  I stuck the small bulbs beneath some stones, figuring that the crud that gets trapped there might provide it with enough nutrients to survive.  Well it in fact likes growing there and blooms for me every summer/fall/winter.

The clump forming foliage is iris-like, 18” or so high and has red sivler dollar sized flowers.  The flowers are born on spikes similar to gladiolas.  The hardiness is said to be from zones 7 on up.  The bulbs are still sometimes sold under the old name of Schizostylis coccinea or the common name of Crimson River Lily.

[Teresa]

Wow!  That is just gorgeous.  I'm gonna go do a search for it and find where I can buy some . . . .Does it smell good too?

[Sean]

I believe it is also called a Kaffir Lily.

Cheers,
Sean

[Mikey]

Teresa: Nope....no fragrance

Sean: True but I didn't use that name as it is also sometimes used with the Clivia.  In addition, saying that word in South Africa wouldn't go over real well.....   I'll let our former South African resident (MikeW) explain why........

[CT]

That's lovely. I'll have to get one ..

[tranquility]

how pretty 
Lawanna

[Jerry]

When I read Sunset's Western Garden Book ( a bible here)  seems like most everything comes from South Africa!

[andrew davis]

Schizostylis has been around a while known as the Kaffir lily, a name of a tribe of the region where it originated, Nuristani (?)

Nice plant, quite reliable, tolerates freezing to some degree, does well in a bog garden position. Tends to look grassy, easy to confuse with grass, often gets over run by weeds in a bog bed well before it gets going, flowers late in the year...

By the time it flowers, it may well be over run with weeds... hit or miss whether it survives a freeze

Regards, andy
http://www.members.aol.com/abdavisnc/swglist.html

[Mikey]

Tends to look grassy, easy to confuse with grass, ...

LOL, I'll vouch for that.   When the plant is young it is very grassy looking.  In fact, when I first planted it, twice I ripped it out from between the rocks thinking it was a weed.  Then I would notice the bulb and go "oops"...  

[MikeW]

As Mikey says, the word kaffir, in South Africa, (now a criminal offense to use), is exactly the same as the 'N' word here.

Originally, I believe, it had a meaning something like 'non-believer', or 'heathen', and a vast tract of land abutting the British colony in South Africa was known as British Kaffraria for many years - the home of the Xhosa peolple. Eventually they got painted red on the map, and swallowed by the Empire too, and the area was renamed the Transkei.

The 'K' word just grew into SA English as a racial slur. Today, the gorgeous kaffirboom in SA has been rebranded the coral tree.

Thus endeth today's history lesson.

Cheers,

Mike

[Mikey]

Thanks for the explanation Mike.  I recall reading an on-line South African newspaper a couple of years ago and one of the articles had to due with someone being criminally charged for using that word in reference to someone he was having an argument with.....

[JoshS]

In looking this plant up, it is listed as a fall bloomer.  Do you think there is much chance that it would have time to bloom in the north?

[Mikey]

Josh: The lady who gave me the bulbs lived in the Pacific NorthWest, in Washington, and they bloomed well for her.

[maryvonne]

That's one very bright looking bloom. Thanks for the history lesson Mike.


Maryvonne

[JoshS]

Pacific NorthWest, in Washington

I'm talk north...where we have real winters    The PNW has a much longer growing season than here in the Midwest.