Plant in full sun with regular watering or in shade where it can be grown fairly dry in coastal gardens but best in shade with occasional irrigation inland. It is fairly drought tolerant along the coast and tolerant of salt spray, so a good plant in first exposure coastal situations. Foliage can get nipped by frost but the plant is hardy to 15° F and it rebounds fast so is useful in gardens in USDA Zones 8b and above. Can be cut back to about 1 foot tall to rejuvenate and treat for snails and slugs as needed, as this plant has proven to be very attractive to them. This is an excellent plant for edging a walkway, mass understory plantings or as specimen plant. In New Zealand it often is planted in the center of divided road medians. The flowers are also great in arrangements.

Renga Lily grows naturally in coastal areas, often on rocks near the seashore, of the Three Kings Island, the North Island and northerly areas of the South Island of New Zealand. This lily relative has been placed in many different families but current treatment has it in the subfamily Lomandraceae within the huge Asparagus family, the Asparagaceae. The genus name is from the Greek words 'arthron', meaning a "joint" and 'podion', meaning a small foot in reference to the to the jointed pedicels of the flowers. The specific epithet is the Greek word for curled in reference to the anthers. This plant was originally described in 1786 as Anthericum cirrhatum but assigned to the genus Arthropodium in 1822 and later the specific epithet was corrected to cirratum. The name Renga is the Maori name for the plant and it is also called Rock Lily and Star Lily.

We first grew this plant from 1993 until 1997 but discontinued it became apparent how susceptible is was to snail damage. With drier conditions and less toxic snail control products now widely available, and after seeing it doing great in Southern California gardens, we decided to grow this plant again and thank John Bleck for keeping this plant going in his garden and giving us the seed to start it up again. Our thanks also to Marilee Kuhlmann of Urban Water Group for the pictures of this plant on our website from a garden she designed in Century City. 

The information about Arthropodium cirratum displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.