is it a phormium?

cheers. if it is a phormium the leaves are a lot narrower than on my other phormium's. any idea what the actual names called?

Could it be Phormium 'Jack Spratt'?

cheers

Actually.... it is an Astelia nervosa ‘Westland’.

We have one in our garden. There's one on this site at:

http://www.growsonyou.com/spritzhenry/blog/2929-winter-interest-in-the-garden-part-5-architectural-plants

It's a lovely plant and also has a popular silver version called:

Astelia chathamica Silver Spear

thanks Longleaf, I was going on the fact that last sunday we went to a local nursery which had phormiums grown from seed and varied widely in colour,size and width of leaves--- fascinating!

thanks longleaf. any idea of the size it will grow and spread to?

Hi Nick 1 . About 20 - 30% bigger than it is now. More wide than high. You may want to move your flowers forward a bit, in time.
It also flowers after a few years - although they are more definitely more for curiosity than beauty.

Hi Pamq. Astelias do look quite like phormiums at first glance. The easy way to tell (once you are up close to one) is to look at the leaf profile.
Astelias have a shallow upside-down letter "w" shape, whereas phormiums are a deeper "V" shape.
The way that the light reflects off the leaves in the photo shows the shape.

Also, the colour. I''ve only ever seen this colour (or silver with "Silver Spear"). Whereas phormiums come in a great range of shades.

thanks Longleaf :)