The Eden Project has been given highly-prestigious National Plant Collection status by the conservation charity, Plant Heritage, after setting a hillside ablaze with hundreds of red-hot pokers.

The striking flowers – scientific name Kniphofia – were planted early last year (2016) and this spring and summer created a dazzling display on the steeply sloping acre of land with the world-famous Biomes as a backdrop.

This represented the biggest planting scheme at Eden since opening, with nearly 8,000 specimens – of which 2,000 were red-hot pokers – installed on the slope.

Kniphofia are exotic, bold and bee-friendly perennial flowers which come in a variety of colours, from flame red to pale yellow and green, and can reach well over a metre tall.

The display at Eden is called Bright Sparks to reflect this blaze of colour and also the fact that young horticulture apprentices have been heavily involved in the project.

Eden has just been informed that Plant Heritage has awarded National Plant Collection status to its collections of Kniphofia cultivars (plant varieties created through breeding) and Kniphofia species (those found in the wild). This is the first time Eden has been given this status for a plant collection.

Planted out at Eden are 79 cultivars, most of which have come from nurseries and botanic gardens around the UK. In addition, 21 different species and varieties are being grown in pots under cover at the Eden Project nursery, ready for planting next spring at the main site.

The exhaustive research was started by Julie Kendall, who is in charge of Eden’s outdoor horticulture team. Working with experts and collectors in the UK and around the world she has sourced all of the plants for the collection.

Eden has been working closely with Lester Elliott, keeper of the National Collection on the Isle of Wight, who has offered to help with cultivars it cannot find.

Eden is now the only UK garden outside of the Isle of Wight to have National Collection status for Kniphofia.

Red hot pokers come in many different sizes, shapes and colours and Eden’s Bright Sparks exhibit will showcase the best and most vibrant:

• The diminutive Kniphofia ‘Papaya Popsicle’ is an orange and yellow variety that only grows to 30cm high and flowers from June to October.

• Contrasting this are the towering yellow ‘Dingaan’ – named after a Zulu king – and ‘Nobilis,’ another large cultivar whose flowers are a vibrant orange fading to yellow lower down the flower spike. These can both reach over a metre tall.

• ‘Tetbury Torch’ is an orange-yellow variety that has two flowering seasons – early June and late summer.

• While most pokers boast long flower spikes, K. rooperi has a large, egg-shaped flower head of glorious orange and yellow blooms.

• Red hot pokers usually flower either red, orange, coral or yellow, but some at Eden will boast different colours, including the green flowers of the ‘Green Jade’ and ‘Mermaiden,’ the peach-pink blooms of ‘Safranvogel’ and the orange-brown tipped cream flower spikes of ‘Toffee Nosed.’