Korean Giant Flowering Liriope. Most plants have a fascinating story behind them. A friend of mine, Rick Crowder of Hawkesridge Farms, Hickory, NC and I were visiting the Atlanta Botanical garden several years ago, and we were both stunned to see this clump of Liriope growing along side a clump of Hemerocallis 'Autumn Minaret.' The Daylily was almost 7' tall with its spidery golden flowers topping its gargantuan scapes and growing right beside it was this clump of Liriope with flower scapes of over 4' tall! Eighteen inches was as tall as I had ever seen a Liriope flower spike. I immediately coveted a division of this clump, and for several years I "begged" them for a division until finally they disposed of the clump because they had gone through all of their accession records and could not identify it. So not only was I able to get a division, I was able to get the whole clump. A few years later, Barry Yinger of Asiatica Nursery and formerly of the U. S. National Arboretum, was visiting me and I showed him this selection to see if he had any idea what it might be. He immediately lit up and exclaimed that it was a selection from which he had collected seed on an island off the southwestern coast of North Korean (even though the island belongs to S. Korea). This was when he was with the National Arboretum, probably in the 1980's. Seed were distributed to many arboreta and botanical gardens through out the country. Barry said that it had keyed out as Liriope platyphylla, which some consider a synonym of Liriope muscari. But I have never seen L. muscari come anywhere close to this species with its tall flower spikes. This plant is most impressive with its 44-50" (even as high as 57") tall flower scapes with leaves that only get to 14-18" high. Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery has since released this species from seed that he collected in China and he has recorded flower spikes to 3' tall. Our particular clone has flower spikes over 4' tall as one can see in the third photo. I measured these spikes after I took this picture and some scapes were over 50". By the way, I have returned several containers of this selection back to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, now that we have it identified, and I have named this clone 'Korean Giant.' This selection does better in more sun, since this tends to strengthen its tall scapes rendering them less likely to fall over in windy conditions. Each year your clump will get larger with more and more flower spikes, and each year the flower spikes get taller. It divides well, but not as vigorously as other Liriopes, and I promise you won't believe this plant! We are saying that it is at least zone 7 hardiness from where it was collected, and since this one originated from Korea, it may be a zone 6 selection or lower. (After teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in the fall of 2016, this area is at least a zone 6, if not zone 5.)
Zones 6-10
