Phormium tenax Sundowner - New Zealand Flax

Phormium tenax 'Sundowner' is a remarkably colourful variety of New Zealand Flax. Its bold, slightly spreading habit and long bronze-green leaves, sometimes touched with brown and heavily edged in pink, all make this plant exotic to gardeners. This fantastic colour intensifies under the summer sun, offering a magnificent spectacle throughout the year. Phormium tenax plants are adaptable but not very hardy, especially the dark-leaved forms. Their use and chosen location must be carefully considered due to their significant growth and strong personality. They can be easily grown in a large container for overwintering in cold climates.

The 'Sundowner' New Zealand Flax belongs to the agave family. It is a beautiful variety derived from Phormium tenax, the larger and hardier of the two New Zealand species. More suited than P. cookianum to occasionally dry soils once established, P. tenax is a widely distributed plant in its country of origin, where it colonizes various environments and soils. This superb rhizomatous perennial develops in a large non-spreading clump composed of multiple rosettes. Each rosette is made up of a bunch of folded leaves, overlapping each other, forming perfect fans. With an upright and bushy habit, it reaches 1.20 m (3 ft 11 in) to 1.50 m (4 ft 11 in) in all directions, depending on the growing conditions. The leaves are wide, up to 6 cm (2.4 in), slightly arching, very long, leathery, pointed at their tips, with a green-grey-bronze colour bordered in bright pink to salmon-pink in summer, becoming more brownish in winter. This variety occasionally flowers, producing tall flower stalks that appear from May to July, depending on the climate, towering above the foliage clump. They are green, tinged with purple and bear curved, yellowish, tube-shaped flowers.

This Phormium is a plant of great ornamental value, suitable for large beds or large rock gardens in mild climates. Whether used as a specimen or planted in groups, it structures the space, with its bronze and pink foliage complementing the silvery shrubs of artemisias or the Pachystegia insignis Daizea. Like tall grasses, it is also a wonderful perennial for a modern garden with clean lines, where its base can be surrounded by a bed of pebbles. In colder regions, it can be grown in a large pot on the terrace or balcony, to admire its presence during the growing season, and overwintered frost-free in a cold greenhouse or lightly heated conservatory. In an urban garden, it softens concrete structures and stands out majestically against a gravel mulch. For an exotic and contrasting atmosphere, it can be placed against an evergreen Ceanothus (Italian Skies, Concha, Victoria) for example. The combination with a Leucophyllum frutescens or a Leptospermum scoparium, both pink-flowering balls, in summer for the former and early autumn for the latter, is delightful for 4 months. The grey foliage of Helichrysum rosmarinifolium 'Silver Jubilee', or the purple of Pittosporum Tom Thumb, will blend beautifully with its lovely leaves. These seaside plants appreciate similar growing conditions. 

The Maoris use Phormiums as we use flax, for their fibres that are used in the textile industry. This is likely where the vernacular name 'New Zealand Flax' comes from.