Nothing Says Fire Like a Red-Hot Poker

Posted by

Ali Barwani

7 August 2026

On 7 August 2026

Walking home after work, I stop to cross the road. Waiting for a man riding a ‘hacked’ Lime bike to lumber past, accompanied by the distinctive click-clacking; the sound of summer in London. A different sense is activated as I catch the sweet tar smell of creosote hanging heavily in the warm evening air. It emanates from the telegraph pole I am standing next to. The aroma of this traditional wood preservative, prohibited for use by the public since 2003, dredges up a distant memory from the summer of 1976.

Like Marcel Proust eating his madeleine with a cup of tea, the smell of creosote baking in summer sun instantly summons recollections of dad’s wooden shed with the sun beating down on the corrugated iron roof: jam jars filled with rusty nails and screws, and old tobacco tins with broken things kept “just in case”.

The shed feels like an oven. I have been tasked with finding the creosote brush, a wide, heavy-duty brush, that is never cleaned but left sitting in a handleless saucepan oozing its own pool of dark oil. One of the many carboard boxes I open contains old copies of Playboy’ – an American men’s ‘lifestyle and entertainment’ magazine. Flicking past the centrefolds (well I was very young!) I study the cartoons. In one, a young lady sitting on the bed in a diaphanous negligee is on the phone telling her friend that she is excited because the hunky gardener (visible through the bedroom window) has just promised to show her his kniphofia.

Naturally, back then, the saucy humour went straight over my head. However, I wanted to know what it meant, so I took the magazine to show mother – who, straining to keep a straight face, told me how to pronounce it (ni-FOH-fee-uh), explaining that it was the scientific name of the red-hot poker.

Still none the wiser as to the joke, I did at least know the flower by its common name. Neglected clumps of it were a common feature in the suburban gardens of my London childhood. Back then I didn’t much care for the torch-like flower spikes with their lank evergreen foliage, although I did enjoy shaking the tubular blooms to liberate the sweet and delicious nectar from the blossoms. But over the years I have come to appreciate the drama these African natives add to a summer border.

My Damascene conversion occurred when I encountered red-hot pokers growing in the wild in the Cape region of South Africa, observing how the torch-like blooms attracted nectar-loving sunbirds as well as pollinating insects. Seeing them growing in their native habitat opened my eyes to their magnificence and gave me a feeling as to how they could better fit into a garden setting if blended with ornamental grasses and other perennials rather than used as isolated clumps filling small flowerbeds in a sea of crazy paving.

The species I saw growing wild was Kniphofia uvaria. There are not many Kniphofia species in the Fynbos region of South Africa. Most of them occur up north in the summer rainfall areas, where you can find both small and giant species. Like the red-hot pokers of my childhood, the flowers on this wild species start off as dark orange turning to bright yellow as they mature. The reason for the strong stalks is also apparent; they need to support the weight of pollinating birds that drink the nectar. I saw that they were growing in the damp soil alongside little streams, a useful observation for their garden cultivation. Pokers enjoy full sun, but they also need water to perform at their best.

The first person to record the plants of the Cape-Peninsula was a Dutch Missionary, Justis Herunius, in 1624. And Kniphofia uvaria was one of the plants he described. However, it was not until the mid-19th Century that these plants became widely planted in British gardens. Of course, Kniphofia were used by indigenous cultures for traditional medicines, charms, and as a source of fibre for twine and rope, long before Europeans arrived.

The early botanists thought they were types of Aloe, a reasonable assumption as their flowers do look very similar. The leaves of kniphofia are thinner and strap-like in contrast to the plump succulent leaves of aloes. Things changed with further botanical examination and they became Kniphofia, but together with aloes they are members of the larger Asphodelaceae plant family. The new genus name honours Johann Hieronymus Kniphof (1704 – 1763), a German professor of medicine and botanist, who produced a monumental tome about plants ‘Botanica in originali’ that employed a printing technique known as ‘nature printing’.

With about seventy species and over a thousand cultivars there is a red-hot poker for every situation in the garden. The torch-like spires of tubular flowers now come in a wide range of colours: glowing reds, oranges and yellows, and pale pinks, and whites, either single colours or vibrant graduated mixes. These perennials also come in various sizes, to suit all positions in a border, with smaller ones available for container growing too.

Kniphofias are now grown and developed all around the world, with new hybrids being introduced every year. But perhaps the strangest discovery made involving red-hot pokers was recently made by scientists at Oxford University, who documented an Ethiopian wolf licking nectar from the flowers of Kniphofia foliosa in the mountains of Bale, in southern Ethiopia. This is the first time a large carnivorous mammal has been recorded feeding on flower nectar, making them surprising plant pollinators.

Back with the Kniphofia in the plant area of the garden centre I am surrounded by buzzing wildlife as the warmth of the sun heats up the still air. This series of heatwaves has shown me that red-hot pokers are one of the herbaceous heroes of the summer heat.

Things to do with Red-hot pokers:

Use them to add summer interest to mixed borders. Plant taller varieties at the back or middle of a sunny bed. The torch-like blooms contrast well with cooler-toned perennials (like blue salvias or Russian sage) or raise the temperature in hot-coloured tropical borders containing plants such as cannas, Echinacea, and red salvias.

Use compact dwarf types to brighten up containers on a sunny balcony or patio.

Grow them in wildlife areas to attract and feed pollinators like bees and butterflies.