Red hot poker help

[MrsBertBibby]

I grew some from seed (Flamenco) this year, but they are teeny still.

The packet claimed first year flowering. Yeah right!

What would you do? Bin? Plant out for the slugs? Keep in pots overwinter outdoors? Or indoors?

It seems unlikely to me they'd get big enough to come to anything this summer but am I just being cowardly?

Oh that is a tiddler! Can you carry on growing in pots and maybe put them in a cold frame outside for the winter? Then you could plant out in spring when they've filled out a bit.

Heh, that's one of the more vigorous specimens!

They have come on since I potted them up, but not dramatically.

I am just conscious how some plants just take off when planted out, even when they didn't seem to be constrained by roots. Maybe I need to try some in bigger pots, some as they are, and some in the ground.

God knows I have space, we ripped out a conifer hedge, and big grass patch during the lockdowns, and I've been putting unholy numbers of plants out there ever since, yet still there is endless bare earth.

Hmm. I’m currently wrestling with red hot pokers, so to speak. I’ve had Flamenco in a pot for a long time. It’s become huge, so I decided that RHPs were going to be the solution to my garden lacking colour in late summer. I planted two little plants and one bigger specimen in the mixed flowerbed. One of the little plants is growing well but the other two are missing presumed dead.

So, in short, I’ve come to the conclusion that RHPs are temperamental and I can’t offer any useful advice.

Oh now I want to try some in a pot, but all my pot spaces are not very sunny.

Decisions decisions!

If you have a few why not put some out and keep some back in case of slug massacre? This is a strategy I use a lot.

Stick them in the garden with a slug proof soil covering around them - perlite, crushed eggshell and a big label so they don't get weeded.