A Purple Crinum That Doesn’t Die in Winter
Do you love purple-foliaged crinums, but you’re tired of them dying outside when it gets cold?
Then it’s time to give this one a try. Crinum ‘Sangria’ is valued for its ability to withstand colder temperatures than any of the other dark-foliage crinums. That’s the entire pitch, and if you’ve killed a purple crinum you already understand why it matters.
The foliage is dramatic and glossy, varying from purple to bronze, with leaves that can reach two feet long. It can grow tall — up to almost five feet. And although it’s valued for the foliage, it does have a nice pink bloom that turns up occasionally through the summer.
Six Years and Two Nights at Fifteen Degrees
I’d rather give you my own data than somebody’s zone chart.
We have successfully grown this crinum outside on our farm for six years, and we’ve had some pretty cold winters in that stretch — 15 to 17 degree lows for two days straight. Hey, that’s cold for us.
For context: we’re in sandy loam soils east of Dallas and north of Tyler. Officially we’re zone 7B.
And here’s where I’m going to argue against my own sales pitch: even though it lived through that here, I’d still recommend this for zone 8 or warmer. It will struggle to survive winter freezes in zone 7 or colder. Six years on one farm in one soil is an anecdote, not a hardiness rating, and I’ve watched enough plants come through five winters and die in the sixth to know the difference. If you’re in zone 7, you’re gambling. I’m telling you the odds, not selling you the ticket.
Where It Came From — and a Name I’ve Been Spelling Wrong
The account in the trade, and Plant Delights gives the fullest version, runs like this: ‘Sangria’ originated in 1983 as a cross of Crinum procerum ‘Splendens’ × an unknown Crinum bulbispermum or bulbispermum hybrid, and it was found as a seedling in the garden of the late Marcia Clint Wilson by the Texas horticulturist Scott Ogden.
Two things about that.
First, I need to correct my own store copy, which has spelled him “Scott Oden” for years. It’s Ogden — the man who wrote Garden Bulbs for the South, which is one of the handful of books this whole business rests on. I quote him on other pages. I should be able to spell him.
Second, the honest caveat: this is a nursery account, not a botanical record, and Plant Delights is essentially the only source for it. I’ve been unable to corroborate the 1983 date or the parentage anywhere independent. I’m passing it along because it’s specific, it comes from serious people, and the plant’s behavior fits it — but I’m passing it along as their account rather than as established fact.
What the parentage does explain, if it’s right, is the whole reason to buy the plant. The purple comes from C. procerum ‘Splendens’ — the tropical one that dies at the first hard freeze. The survival comes from C. bulbispermum, the South African species that carries cold hardiness into this entire genus. Somebody’s garden crossed the two on its own, and Scott Ogden was standing there and knew what he was looking at.
That’s how most of the good ones happen, honestly. Not in a lab. In a bed, by accident, in front of somebody paying attention.
Uses in the Landscape
This one breaks the crinum rule, and it’s worth saying plainly.
On every other page here I’m telling you to hide crinum foliage behind salvia and lantana, because crinum foliage is generally the price you pay for crinum flowers. Sangria inverts that. The showy foliage comes on in spring and lasts all summer and fall — that’s eight or nine months of the year when this plant is earning its keep, and the flowers are the occasional bonus rather than the point.
So place it as a foliage plant. Put the dark glossy purple where it can work against something green or grey or silver, and treat any bloom as a gift. The flowers cluster atop smooth sturdy stems after a few years of growth — but the bulbs can be grown purely for the pleasure of the leaves, and there’s no shame in that.
At nearly five feet it’s a back-of-the-bed proposition, or an anchor.
Planting & Care
Zones: 8 or warmer recommended. Will struggle in zone 7 or colder. See above.
Sun: Full sun to part shade.
Water: This is a low-maintenance bulb, but it should be watered regularly — more than the drought-hardened crinums I usually describe.
Blooms: Rosy magenta, trumpet-shaped, in late spring and again in the fall. Occasional through the summer.
Foliage: Purple to bronze, glossy, up to 2 feet long. Plant can reach nearly 5 feet.
Shipping: Spring-shipped. Our spring-planted bulbs ship March 15 through the end of summer. Orders placed in winter ship the following spring. You may order any time to reserve, though your card is charged at checkout.
The Modern One
I’ll be straight about what this is: ‘Sangria’ is not an heirloom, and I’m not going to dress it up as one.
It’s a 1983 garden seedling. It has not survived a hundred years of neglect at an abandoned homesite, because it hasn’t been alive for a hundred years. Most of what I sell got here by being carried out of a fallen-down yard; this one got here because a plantsman looked at a volunteer in a friend’s garden and thought hold on.
But that’s the whole story of this genus in miniature, just compressed. Somebody paid attention, somebody kept the seedling, somebody handed it on. Give it forty years in a warm garden and it’ll be doing exactly what the old ones do — enormous, immovable, and coming up purple every spring long after everyone’s forgotten who planted it.
They all start modern. Some of them just started earlier.
Shop this variety at SouthernBulbs.com