Sparaxis
When you have trouble thinking of color combinations I've heard advice to 'look to nature.' These flowers are the most unlikely combination of red, pink, brown and yellow. I had to search for a while to figure out what this plant is called. The benefits of a print catalog is you can look at many pictures quickly to find what you are looking for. On the internet it is a different story. To find this I started with gladiolus because for the longest time I thought it was a hardy gladiolus but when I really looked at it tonight I noticed it is symetical all the way around not just one one axis like a gladiolus is/are. I looked at about 5 bulb company web sites before thinking maybe this is a Crocosmia. So I searched and searched for a Crocosmia that looked like this. No luck. Then I came across Tritonias that kinda of looked like these. I finally saw a fuzzy picture of a flower with the same center pattern on www.bulbsdirect.com.au which led me to Sparaxis tricolor or Harlequin flower. Finally a name for this! These flowers grow with very little care in my clay soil. At the end of the bloom i eventually cut off the dead leaves and flowers but that's it. I also came across a site that sells bulbs for warm places like So. Cal. www.easytogrowbulbs.com. One of the things that don't grow well here are Tulips. Most of the big catalogs specialize in bulbs that require a cold period that we don't get here. So to grow tulips you have to store them in the fridge for a couple of months and then plant them. Forget about reblooming next year unless you want to dig up, clean and store them in your fridge again. This fall I will try to add something to my garden that is more suited to our climate.
