Rocket's Red Glare has extra-long flower spikes with warm red buds that open to creamy peach flowers, giving each torch a fiery top and a soft base. Rebloom keeps the color coming late into the season.
It grows about 2½ to 3 feet tall and 1½ to 2 feet wide. The grassy foliage adds texture next to bold-leaved perennials, and it suits prairie, rock and modern garden styles. Hummingbirds love it, and deer and rabbits seldom bother it.
What it looks like
Long, club-shaped flower spikes with vibrant warm red buds at the top opening to creamy peach tubular florets toward the bottom, creating a red-to-peach gradient. Spikes are held on stout, bare stems above a clump of long, arching, grass-like green leaves. The plant grows about 30 to 36 inches tall in flower and 18 to 24 inches wide. At peak several long, two-tone torches rise together above the foliage.
Growing it with lavender
Red hot poker likes the same full sun and sharp, lean drainage as lavender, and its upright spikes make a bold vertical contrast rising behind mounds of purple lavender in summer.
Care
Plant in full sun in well-drained soil, lean to average; it handles drought once established but will rot in soggy winter soil. Hardy in zones 6-9, and in colder spots a winter mulch and a sheltered, well-drained site help. Cut spent flower spikes at the base to encourage more blooms, and leave the foliage standing over winter, tidying it in spring.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Kniphofia
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Flower color: Warm red buds opening creamy peach
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Foliage: Green
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Growth habit: Upright clump of arching, grassy leaves
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Mature size: 30–36 in tall × 18–24 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 6–9
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Light: full sun
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Bloom start: Late-June
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Peak bloom: Mid-July
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Bloom pattern: Repeat Blooming
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Deer resistance: Moderately resistant
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Pollinator value: Excellent
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.