Are there any tricks to growing Agapanthus?
Agapanthus
Out here they are very low maintenance, you stick them in the ground and water them occasionally and other than that you can pretty much ignore them. I imagine they'll probably need to be divided eventually, but mine have only been in the ground a year or two so they're not close to needing it yet. I'm not sure if they'll be equally carefree in your climate or not. You're also down near the bottom of their hardiness range (or maybe slightly colder?) so that may make them a little more trouble than they are for me.
Well, I think there must be a trick to it because my friends has dozens of stalks ready to bloom, and I don't have but one. :(
Jo
This message was edited Apr 20, 2008 2:35 PM
I see it grown down here and all the way up into Maine. I found a great deal in a local place last year. It was a Huge clump in a 10" pot. But so far this year only a couple of them have started coming in. Maybe I just need to give it more time and might need to divide it.
Jo--How big are your plants and how long ago did you plant them? Mine were planted in winter of 2006, and last summer some bloomed but some didn't, so they either need a little more time in the ground to get established or they need to be a little bigger. Or if it's a clump you've had forever and it used to bloom but doesn't anymore then maybe it needs to be divided. Or if you water/fertilize them too much that might make them grow a lot but not bloom. Or they might not be getting enough sun (although I have a couple that probably only get about 4 hrs of sun and they still bloom)
Mosybone--if they were in a 10" pot I doubt they need to be divided, I've seen some really huge clumps that are still blooming fine. If they were just planted last year I'd give them a little time. And when you say a couple of them are just coming in...do they die back in your climate? Here they stay green all year so I have no experience with what to expect if they die to the ground and then have to come back.
They die back here but are supposed to be perennial here also. The clump was overflowing the sides of the pot with probably 20-30 plants in the clump. The other 10" pots around it had maybe 3-4 plants in them.
I was having trouble imagining how you could possibly have 20-30 plants in a 10" pot, so I did a little digging and apparently there are two different sorts of Agapanthus, evergreen ones and deciduous ones. I have the evergreen kind and you have the deciduous one (with the evergreen ones, you could fit 1 plant in a 10" pot, but not much more than that unless they were still seedlings!) Since I've never grown the deciduous ones, I'm not sure if the things that I've observed with the evergreen ones are applicable or not. Here's a website that has some good info on Agapanthus in general. http://www.agapanthus.org.uk/uk/public/index.php?id=16
Thanks very much. I will check it out.
They like it as dry as possible in the winter
=)
Hey, there's even one hardy to zone 5! A. 'Hardy Blue'. I mulched it in this winter, just to be sure, and here it comes:
I have a very miniature variety called 'Stream line' that stays very small (about the size of the smallest varieties of monkey grass). I like it a lot better than the larger ones, which I really don't have room for.
Debbie
=)
