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Phormium 'Dusky Chief' (New Zealand Flax) - This New Zealand Flax cultivar grows upright to 6 feet to 8 feet tall with narrow 1 1/2" wide light maroon foliage that curves gracefully just near the leaf tips and has a waxy grayish color on the back side. The upright inflorescences rising above the foliage hold reddish flowers, showing its Phormium tenax parentage. Older foliage turns more bronze colored and should be removed annually for the plant to look its best.
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 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. 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 plant planted in 1999 now (2013) measures just over 6 feet tall and a plant at UC Berkeley's Blake Garden in Kensington, CA has been measured at closer to 8 feet tall.
The information about Phormium 'Dusky Chief' that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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