Agapanthus/Growing To Perfection

 

Do blue flowers make you feel cooler?

Our area had a lucky weekend--the forecast heat did not arrive.  Saturday the July-Sky was gray until 11 am, which made for comfortable, celebratory gardening.  

But that was Saturday.  Yet, the near 90F (32 C) heat forecast for the next four days didn't really happen.  We got morning hours of marine layer that kept our temperatures down by several blessed degrees each day.  Today at 1pm it's an astonishing 75F (24 C).

Still, gardening is limited to emergency spot-watering of  heat-stressed plants.  

Peak Agapanthus this week.  The garden is home to seven different cultivars and a selection of one species.  They all flower at slightly different times, extending the blooming season. 

'Pruntucky Summer' was the first to flower (May 10), and it has sent up two new inflorescences in the past couple of weeks.  Our delightfully gray May and June extended the life of the flowers.

'Queen Mum' has the largest and tallest flowers, with an inflorescence diameter of over 9" and a height of over 42".  

'Brilliant Blue' is the smallest with an inflorescence  of less than 3" in diameter, and 12" tall.

'Indigo Frost' aka 'Twister' is prolific, with a distinctive blue/white coloration.  Some of the individual fans have three bloom stems each. 

Agapathus 'Storm Cloud'(?) has that marvelous saturated blue even in intense summer sunlight:

'Atomic Bloom' claims to repeat bloom.  Haven't seen that yet, unless three more flower stems appearing just as the old ones finished is repeat bloom?  Okay, then it repeats. The short stems and growth habit are tidy, the flower color not too washed out. 

'Black Pantha' is bloomless this year, just as it was last year, even though the plant grew and looks healthy   Here it was back in 2022. 

Hmm...so what's your problem?

A deciduous species, A. inapertus 'Nigrescens' has, after several years here, never flowered.  It seemed desperately unhappy in the ground.  Potted it up, it has grown much better, but...still no flowers.  I read it does best with crowded roots, hence the pot. 

Maybe next year?

Enough Agapanthus.

I've been carefully paying attention to several rooted cuttings of Begonia 'Irene Nuss'.  I've grown this plant for over 25 years and never paid much attention to it.  The motivation to do so now is 'Irene' may be the plant to hide this pipe:

Clematis 'Angelique' very deliberately chose to avoid hiding the pipe.  She did it intentionally. I'm cramping her style--she's growing in a pot that is about 90% roots and 10% soil.  Repotting this winter, I promise. 

 'Irene Nuss' at mature size is just about the exact height (3-4') and habit (vertical) to hide that pipe.   So I've been attentively nurturing four cuttings, not only to hide the pipe, but to develop better sensitivity to what any plant needs--to learn growing to perfection.  'Irene' is a good subject because it responds quickly to just about everything: a hot day (burnt leaf), a missed watering (droop!), higher humidity (saturated foliage color) and on and on.

The plant on the left below is a cutting that rooted very quickly in warm weather.  The other two were rooted over the winter and were much slower.  Will this affect them in the longer term?   I'm hoping to find out.

 The pipe hiding failure goes back several years.  I tried in 2020 to hide it with some Nasturtiums growing up a trellis, and ended up with a broken wrist.   To add insult to literal injury, the Nasturtiums never grew.  

Under the Maple sitting on damp ground with immediate higher humidity, the 4th rooted cutting looks the happiest.  Another bit to know.  

Learning all the little factors that affect a plant is useful, surely.   I may yet get A. impertus 'Nigrescens' to flower.