the traveling agapanthus...

After I saw gloriously blooming bright blue agapanthus several years ago, used profusely in landscaping, I knew I wanted to have some put on a show in my yard. And knew that my dad had planted a large clump in the front of the house at 1209 many years ago, having seen it showing off in early summer. So I went with my bucket and shovel, and think I possibly dug it ALL up. But it has been shared, far and wide and is hopefully blooming in all the places it has come to rest.

I probably have a two dozenplants, with at least 12 tall (over three foot high) stalks, topped by buds that look like garlic or onions as the thin skin peels back and blooms gradually open, that will make big round balls of multiple blue ball-shaped blooms in the next week or so. My aunt in Valdosta has a number of the agapanthus lilies currently blooming in her back yard that she thoroughly enjoys looking at and showing to anyone who will come and visit. I gave some of the bulbs/corms to people in Decatur and Chattanooga, and hope the ones that have moved farther north are beginning to open.

The auntie took several plants to my nephew who lives in Richmond, and has received photos of the agapanthus in full bloom, a bit later in the year than they show off in south Georgia. I gave a half dozen to my co-worker, who put them in a pot, and said the plants have done well, but yet to bloom for him. I shared half a dozen with friends in mid-Florida, that, if they bloomed, would have probably already opened before now, in a different growing zone. I took some and sold them at the botanical gardens plant sale spring of last year, so they are all over town, hopefully popping open in many gardens throughout the area.

It has taken two growing seasons for them to get to the point of blooming, but they are really putting on a show, in two different locations in my yard.When I look at the ones standing tall by my front door, I think of my dad, and smile. He would be so pleased to hear the story of how they have traveled, and are brilliantly-blue blooming in so many gardens and yards all over the southeast.