Jane’s Garden: Pretty African agapanthus beautifies many places | Home and Outdoor Living

In Florida’s warm humid subtropical local weather zone, and in chilly hardiness zones 9 to 11, perennial, evergreen agapanthus starts off to bloom in April in South Florida, in Could in Central Florida and in summer additional north.

Agapanthus flowering vegetation are initially from Southern Africa. There are hundreds of hybrids and named varieties in cultivation ideal for diverse climates and chilly zones.

Numerous varieties and cultivars are winter hardy and foliage dies to the ground in Zones 7 of the Southeastern Coastal Basic and in Northern California, where by they flower in summertime.

In heat climates globally, gardeners adore summertime-blooming agapanthus kinds. In some areas of Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Mexico and Jamaica, agapanthus has turn out to be naturalized in the wild.

Agapanthus are not lilies. They develop from underground rhizome storage organs, not a layered bulb or good corm. Fleshy white roots grow from the rhizomes. Thick, evergreen, linear or straplike leaves are clustered at the base.

Tall, erect flower scapes (stalks) are topped by a single globe-formed pseudoumbel of a lot of funnel- or tube-formed unique bouquets. Flower colours variety from deep to mild blue, lavender to white. The seedpods also appear beautiful in the backyard beds and seeds are eaten by wildlife.

The shorter and lesser selection named “Elaine” has a 3- to 4-inch cluster of bouquets in a dark purplish-blue colour and small leaves under a foot tall. Hybrids and cultivars of the common or blue African agapanthus (now named Agapanthus orientalis) can have leaves to 24 inches very long and a clump can be up to 24 inches in diameter.

The scape can expand many ft tall, so the inflorescence flower umbel towers previously mentioned the basal foliage.

The cultivar “Albus” has white bouquets. “Ever Sapphire” is a semi-dwarf cultivar with vivid blue flowers. “Flore Pleno” has double flowers. “Variegatus” has striped leaves. “Nanus” and “Elaine” equally have a dwarf, compact sort.

In time, agapanthus can turn out to be a beautiful, tall floor include or a mass planting of various effectively-spaced clumps. Big clumps of rhizomes and roots can be carefully dug up and cautiously divided at the nodes to propagate new more compact plant clones similar to the guardian plant.

Divisions may perhaps just take two a long time to build and can flower in about 3 a long time. Seeds are typically fertile and can be collected and sprouted but may perhaps not be equivalent to the mother or father plant.

To flower very well, agapanthus demands at minimum six hrs of full sun. In warm sunny Florida, afternoon shade is desirable. Underground agapanthus rhizomes may be lined with all-natural carbon-primarily based top mulch for protection from sunburn and wintertime frosts.

Natural leaf litter, pine needles and bark chips are all suitable leading mulches. Inorganic stones and rock that take in summertime sunshine warmth the soil and may possibly overheat agapanthus rhizomes, resulting in damage or loss of life.

In 1788, the genus Agapanthus was named by Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle. In Greek, “agap” signifies “love” and anthos signifies “flower.”

Considering the fact that 2009, molecular phylogenic analyses of DNA sequences verify that within just the monocot order Asparagales, the family members Amaryllidaceae has three sister clades or subfamilies named Agapanthoideae, Allioideae and Amaryllidoideae. The subfamily Agapanthoideae has only one particular genus Agapanthus.

Back again in December 2013, The Planet Checklist of Picked Plant Families regarded seven species in the Agapanthus genus, but some were being subspecies. Their aged checklist for the species Agapanthus praecox bundled the synonym names A. comptonii and A. orientalis.

Nonetheless, in December 2018, the UF/IFAS publication #fps 18, initially penned by Ed Gilman, and a afterwards 2020 publication made use of the approved species name Agapanthus orientalis.

Simply because contemporary scientific investigate has now corrected previous errors and misconceptions in plant and animal species names, the accepted names are now proven, employed globally, and unlikely to alter in the upcoming.

Jane Weber is a expert gardener and guide. Semi-retired, she grows 1000’s of native vegetation. Readers are welcome to her Dunnellon, Marion County, garden. Get in touch with her at [email protected].