Lucifer's Tails and Perennials

Culture

• Plant Lucifer's tails in full sun and mulch well to protect the corms from cold winters. In climates where temperatures go below minus-20 degrees F, dig the corms and store them wrapped in newspaper in a basement or heated garage. Crocosmia isn't fussy about soil type and is drought-tolerant once established, so it multiplies rapidly and is sometimes considered a pest. The Lucifer variety reaches 4 feet tall but usually does not need staking. If you have problems with it toppling, plant the corms near a bushy perennial such as a peony or a twiggy shrub so the Lucifer's tails are supported by the other plant's branches.

Companion Plants

• Because Lucifer's tails are a tall, vertical element in the garden, they look good in contrast with perennials that grow in mounding shapes or against large, leafy perennials with dark foliage. Early-blooming perennials that retain their foliage, such as herbaceous and tree peonies, are a good choice as complements. Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp.) grows taller and flowers later than Lucifer's tails, so it also makes a good background companion for them.

Flowering Perennials

• Perennials that flower at the same time as Lucifer's tails include daylilies, red hot pokerss (Kniphofia spp.) lobelia, yarrow, verbena, black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia spp.), salvias, coreopsis, Shasta daisies and coneflowers (Echinacea spp.). Most come in the hot colors associated with the sunny, high-summer garden -- orange, red, yellow, gold, maroon and purple. A garden combining salvias and crocosmia is a hummingbird smorgasbord.

Perennial Grasses

• Midsize grasses such as the bronze carexes are another good companion perennial for Lucifer's tails. The coppery blades of varieties such as orange New Zealand sedge (Carex testacea), leatherleaf sedge (C. buchannii) and hair sedge (C. flagellifera and C. comans) make good textural and colorful foils for the scarlet flowers.