Crocosmia Babylon - Montbretia

The Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Babylon', also known as Montbretia, is a vigorous and exquisite variety due to its long, gracefully arched flower stems, abundantly adorned with orange flame lily flowers. Each flower has a mahogany red eye enhanced by a small golden base. Not very hardy but easy to grow as an annual in moist soil and the sun, this montbretia, with its dark green iris-like foliage, will be welcome near the terrace or flower beds during the warm days and even until autumn. This variety also produces gorgeous flowers for bouquets.

The Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora is a perennial herbaceous plant with corms originating from South Africa, belonging to the Iridaceae family, obtained in France around 1880. It shows many similarities with the gladiolus.

The 'Babylon' variety forms in spring a clump of basal leaves, flexible, 50 cm (20in) tall, and produces from July a curved stem, 60 to 80 cm (24 to 32in) high, carrying a horizontally branched spike, with nearly 50 red buds, blossoming into mango-orange to light red flowers, with small brown marks, about 4 cm (2in) in diameter. They are composed of 3 inner petals and three outer petals. The dark green leaves are sword-shaped. Their surface is crumpled and strongly veined, and they spread fan-like or in a dense cluster from the base of the plant. Their storage organ is a corm, an underground pseudo-bulb with the appearance of a bulb formed from a swollen stem surrounded by scales.

Half-bulb, half-shrub, and Montbretias are symbols of summer. Easy to grow, vigorous, and not demanding, they are planted in the sun, in groups of 10 corms, in fertile and moist soil. Their bright colours, yellow, orange or red, create very cheerful spots of colour in gardens. They are splendid when combined with annuals or bushes and are well-suited to natural gardens mixed with perennials or grasses. When they thrive in the ground, in sunny exposure and well-drained soil, they multiply over the years and become more beautiful every year. They are also excellent plants for your flower bouquets.