A small group outside starting to tamper with mum's red-hot poker (7)

'red-hot poker' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both plants as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?

'a small group outside starting to tamper with mum's' is the wordplay.
'a small group' becomes 'trio' (group of three people).
'outside' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'starting to' suggests taking the first letters.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'mum' becomes 'ma' (ma can mean mother).
The first letter of 'tamper' is 't'.
'trio' placed around 't' is 'trito'.
'trito'+'ma'='TRITOMA'

Can you help me to learn more?