Plant in full sun to light shade. Can tolerate fairly dry conditions (coastal) but looks best with occasional to regular irrigation. Cold hardy to 15-20° F and possibly root hardy below these temperatures but with severe foliage damage unless protected. A stable medium to large red flax with narrower leaves than most other Phormium cultivars its size - we have plants in the ground at the nursery for over ten years and it still has dark foliage and are not oversized for the planting, but is certainly larger than we originally thought.

Phormium 'Dusky Chief' was described as early as 1969 in a New Zealand nursery catalog as being "dwarfish, black-purple, richly coloured" - we originally listed this plant as 3 to 4 feet tall but our garden specimen planted in 1999 by 2013 measured just over 6 feet tall. A plant at University of California Berkeley's Blake Garden in Kensington has been measured at closer to 8 feet tall. We first offered this reliable and attractive New Zealand Flax in 1995 and continued to grow and sell it up until the time we closed the nursery in 2025. 

Information displayed on this page about Phormium 'Dusky Chief' is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.