What a pretty flower.TFS
Kathi

I love these.... I wish I could grow them here.... What are your average minimum winter temps Geoff? :)

We generally only get a few degrees of frost and certainly no long periods of prolonged frost. It must be 20 years since we had the ground frozen much below a surface frost.
Cannot find this one in my reference books but the other species of Dierama that I found were all hardy to about -10 degrees Centigrade.
I have only ever found it in the Plant Worlds catalogue. It is really nice watching something flower from seed that you have never seen anywhere else. It was OK last year, the first year it flowered, but this year the plant has been fantastic. It has put out so many of those arching stems. It is much more showey than the common Dierama and is one of those plants that make people stop in their tracks and ask what it is.

Well if you only get a few frosts and no "prolonged" periods then it probably wouldn't survive here. We ger regular frost throughout the winter. The ground freezes but not alot. But still it would probably be too cold. :)

Geoff

I've germinated a couple of these from seed but now they don't seem to be putting on much growth.

They are still in my green house which has an irrigation system so I wonder if they are getting too much water. Do they prefer damp or dry conditions?

The flower is very pretty, but I can't get past the stem - looks like a string of ugly bugs. *shivers* ;-)

Sorry Gidders but I have been on holiday. I am not sure about that. i keep mine just slightly moist. I think I would perfer to hand water them rather than irrigate automatically. The plants that seem to love automatic watering are my primulas. The primrose and polyanthus seedlings have grown huge while I have been away.