Dierama Plants – Fussy, but worth the trouble!

Dierama plants are fussy, but once they are happy in your garden, they will reward you with multiple, unusual flowers, that dangle delicately on a tall, impossibly thin arching stem 5ft in the air. 

Then you will understand their common names of ‘Angels fishing rods’ and ‘Dancing Ladies’. When the wind catches their flowers, they literally do dance around.

Dieramas are classed as a perennial plant but their leaves are evergreen. They’re thin and resemble a type of grass, with tufts around 2ft or 60cm high.

They originate from mountainous grasslands in South Africa. So they are looking for a sunny, south facing position with well drained soil.

Anything less than these conditions and they will, at best, sit there and sulk with a few straggly leaves, if you’re really lucky you’ll get an odd flower stem, but certainly not reaching it’s full height.

Or at worst, if you plant them somewhere damp their corns will simply rot and die.

Trying to grow Dierama

I have now spent many years trying to grow them – unsuccessfully!

I sow them from seed, they germinate well. Then pot them on and some lovely little grasslike leaves grow to around 6″ high, all good so far. Then I plant them where I want them to grow and they refuse!

They don’t die as I have a very free draining soil, but all I have is leaves.

Finally though in 2019 I got this one flower stem, I was very excited and thought this is the beginning, but no, nothing since – until this year!

New sunny border

Last year, I created a new flower border. I have given over most of the sunniest side of the garden to food production. Including a south facing wall, named ‘the great wall’, that has fruit trees growing on it.

There was however a small patch in front of the Plum and Cherry fans, that grow on the wall. Nothing had quite worked out in it, so I decided to try a wildflower effect. I’d already sown some more Dierama’s determined to keep trying and they went in.

Success at last! They love their new sunny home, and I’ve finally seen first hand what a spectacular plant it is! I really couldn’t believe how high the flower stems got.

Strangely enough the flower at the very top of the stem opens first, gradually moving down. Quite the opposite to most flowers.

I grew three varieties:

‘Blackbird’ – Purple opening to dark pink

‘Pink Rocket’ – A pale baby pink

‘Snowbells’ – Pure white

Once the flowers have finished, they leave little seed pods dangling from the stem. These are attractive in their own right, dancing in the wind, just like they are on a fishing rod.

So, if you have a sunny, free draining spot, I would certainly encourage you to have a go at growing these little fuss pots. They have definitely been worth persevering with!

Happy gardening.