Fire of Eden

Nursery catalogs can be very romantic, and I have never seen Montbretia called Fire of Eden anywhere except in a catalog. My small town is ablaze with these bright orange flowers, Crocosmia masonorum or Tritonia crocosmiiflora, which originally came from Africa and now have wandered as far as Hawaii. A Scottish collector brought the corms to Europe in the late 1700s. The name comes from the Greek, meaning "saffron-scented", though to my nose the flowers have no aroma. I might try drying some this year and see if that brings up the scent.

I love a plant which isn't finicky and which just grows on its own without too much fuss. The corms create their own mulch, so that even if you dig them up, the soil is improved for whatever follows. Since there are hundreds, maybe thousands, in the yard, I sometimes just pull them up after they have bloomed and fling them in the the general direction of the fence, where they came up this year in  neat, lush rows.