Firestorm Ti Plant Cordyline fruticosa Firestorm

Firestorm carries broad burgundy leaves striped lengthwise with pink, a mix that reads hotter and darker than the green or cream based ti plants. That dark base is the practical point: against plain green foliage it still reads clearly from the street. Like the other coloured ti plants it colours best in bright light with shelter from the hottest afternoon sun, so it belongs in an open bed with morning sun rather than a dim courtyard. It makes an upright plant of slender canes with loose crowns of leaves, and it does its most useful work planted in numbers, where a run of plants along a path or under palms reads as a continuous band of colour.

Planting it as a band, not a dot

Set plants about 60cm apart, staggered in two rows if the bed is deep enough, and the crowns close over within a couple of warm seasons. A single plant in a large bed tends to look lost, while a group gives the striping enough mass to register from the street. Firestorm suits frost free gardens: the Queensland coast, northern New South Wales and the warmer pockets of Sydney grow it in the ground, and Perth gardens manage it with shelter from hot dry wind and some summer shade. Anywhere colder, grow it in a large pot and move it to a protected spot for winter. Prepare the whole strip rather than digging single holes, working compost through its full width and raising it on heavy clay, so every plant in the row sits in the same rich, free draining soil. Water deeply through summer, mulch to keep the root zone cool, and back off once nights turn cold.

Position decides how well the stripes hold. Shade over the bed by early afternoon keeps them broad and clean; reflected heat off paving or a hot western wall burns them into pale, dry streaks, while a dim spot fades the pink and dulls the leaf towards bronze, so at a distance it reads as a plain dark cordyline. Burnt leaves stay marked, so cut them off once fresh growth has filled the crown.

Striped, solid red or near black

Within the same species, Cordyline fruticosa Rubra is the solid burgundy red without the striping, and Cordyline fruticosa Negra is close to black. Firestorm is the livelier of the three, which makes it the front row plant: Negra behind as the dark mass, Firestorm in front where the pink can be seen. Use it with restraint beside other striped or variegated foliage, or the bed loses its shape. The full Cordyline collection also holds the hardy cabbage trees, for frosty sites where no ti plant will survive the winter outdoors.

Scale, ants and cutting the row level

Scale insects settle on the undersides of the leaves and along the canes, and ants running up the stems to collect the honeydew often give them away, followed by black sooty mould on the leaves below. Wipe off light infestations, or spray with horticultural oil early on a mild morning, never in summer heat on a leaf in full sun. When a massed planting has gone tall and bare at the base, cut the whole row to one height in late spring or summer, and the canes leaf up again within the season, all at the same level. Feed the row as one bed rather than plant by plant, scattering a slow release fertiliser for foliage plants along the whole row at the first flush of spring growth and again after Christmas, then watering it in. All parts of the plant are toxic to cats and dogs, so think twice about it along a run where pets dig and chew.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 300mm, at $57.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.