Oldshape's Outbox

Yes Gillian, they do.
I hope they like it next year because there was a wall about 8 feet from them, I had to pull the wall down in March.......and it was a windshield. Mind you, the flower heads are higher than the wall was, and there is plenty of foliage to protect the centre so here's hoping that next July I'll get an equal display.

Thanks Janette, it may have started as one plant but I think it's as old as me! It would easily divide, but why bother?.....it's happy there and I'm happy to leave it there.

Sid et al,
as promised, pictures of my poker in bloom. 56 blooms and about 12 more green ones underneath. But, by the time they get out, some of the flowering ones will be dead so I reckon this was the best time to photograph.

Yes.

Don't bother digging it out, the roots can be HUNDREDS of feet long.

Kill it with a glycophosphate weedkiller, or one that kills from the leaves to the roots...it's no use killing off the green bits alone.
Before spraying, "Clap" the weed gently between two pieces of wood. This damages the waxy coating which covers all the green - the coating prevents the weedkiller getting in.
Good luck. It took me two years to rid my 100 foot garden of it. I kept a hand held sprayer at the ready on a daily basis. Evey time one popped out, it got it!

56 blooms and counting!

Sid, I looked at your pictures, V nice.

Technical bit: -
Yours is red all over, I have a yellow bottom.
(I'll say that again!)

Your Kniphofia flower is all red, mine have the yellow underside. Is that a soil thing, or a different genre?

Nah! You cut that out with blunt scissors! :-)

As per Chrispook, I tidy mine in spring. Old stems and brown leaves, and I get quite a hoard.
Mine has just thrown is stems up (Literally in the last few days), I have 26 visible stems and I can see maybe 20 more just starting.

If they all flower together I'll post a piccy or two.

Update.
Here we are, 3 weeks since I posted.
I have 26 visible flower stems now, I swear they came out between Tuesday and Wednesday!!!
This is only half the plant, I can see just as many more just starting out in the heart.

They are about 5 weeks behind last year, I thought it was a much greater time delay.

Phew.

The only explanation I can find, after 30 mins surfing.....is that this must be glow worms.
Even entomology forums say it's a glow worm.

No, I'm not convinced either.

I killed all my "Non grass" in March / April with a couple of applications of Weed n Feed. Not top brand stuff either, I used a cheaper alternative from BnQ.
If you get regular rain, it may be worth a try now. Or, if you have the luxury of unmetered water/no hosepipe ban you could water it in.

My lawn is nearly all brown now, no decent rain for 5 weeks. I cut it too short last time too (Mower now altered).

I'd leave it.
It's all part of the process of getting your waste down to good soil.

To get rid of them would require some sort of chemical. and that would upset the balance in the bin.

I turn my compost monthly, ants move on after being "re-housed" a few times.

Also, I'm sure an expert will comment, but a compo bin if working properly should get to about 50-70 degrees centigrade, surely that's too warm for ants.......which may indicate that the balance in your bin is wrong?
Just supposition, I'm sure we'll find out in a while.

Thanks for the name.
Grows to about 2 feet, 3 feet in a non-windy area.

Thanks for naming it.

Usually hacked off and eaten before this point but we came back from a week away to be blessed with the flowers.

I used to call this Winter Honeysuckle (Probably wrong as it's summer!!) The scent is good, but doesn't compare to the traditional yellowy ones.

The weather here has been mild. Slugs n Snails - possibly. But there isn't even a trace of a "Chewed" stem anywhere in the heart of the plant. The base of the plant(s) is about the size of a dining table. As I said, last year it had about 50 spikes.
I had one fail like this in the last house. I wonder if it doesn't like my (Not so green) fingers?

Another guess, I don't think it's a Fern, the fronds don't look right. Do some googling on Sage plants.

Can you get a close up of the leaves and flowers, preferably with a piece of white paper held behind them?

NO NO NO!
Do not eat them!
HORSE chestnuts are poison, SWEET Chestnuts are edible.
Different tree.

A toxic substance called aesculin is in the Horsey. To make it safe you would need to boil the things about 6 times, each time with fresh water. To get what? A yellow tasteless mulch that a dog would prefer to roll in than eat.

You can make a sort of fuel from it.
But don't.
In the WW2, a method of making a chemical to assist the production of cordite (The explosive used in BIG guns) was invented using conkers.
So, let that idea pass :-)