June 22nd. – Agapanthus Time!

It hardly seems like nearly a month ago that I last updated our Plant Centre blog and most of that time seems to have been spent watering! Although the hot weather is great for our visitors it does mean dawn to dusk watering in the nursery and Plant Centre trying to keep everything looking good.

The warm spring and early summer has brought out the flowers of our Agapanthus a few weeks ahead of their normal flowering time this year so we have around a dozen cultivars looking great and ready to go – some old favourites and also some brand new ones. Here are a few pictures of some of the best.

 

 

Agapanthus ‘Silver Baby’ – a lovely dwarf cultivar with lots of white flowers with a blue edge to the petals. It always has lots of flower stems per plant.

 

 

 

 

Agapanthus ‘Phantom’ – a similar colour to Silver Baby but a big strong plant that produces 1m. high flower stems – a real winner!

 

 

 

 

 

Agapanthus ‘Regal Beauty’ – A big strong plant that produces tall stems of beautiful dark purple blue flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

Agapanthus ‘Navy Blue – still just in bud but our best seller. Hardy, lots of flowers and a stunning dark blue!

 

 

 

Also worth a mention now are the Hoherias – these are New Zealand endemics and are commonly named Lacebark or Ribbonwood. The Gardens has the National Collection of these beautiful evergreen shrubs and small trees and we have them in flower now in the Plant Centre. For a smaller garden you could choose Hoheria ‘Stardust’ which makes a large shrub and is covered in stunning white flowers now. Or, for something a bit bigger, go for Hoheria sexstylosa which will make a small tree also with a profusion of flowers covering the branches now. Pics below –

 

 

Hoheria ‘Stardust’

 

 

 

 

 

Hoheria sexstylosa

 

 

 

Finally just to say that we also have masses of beautiful perennials ready now from Asters to Verbenas with something new coming into bloom almost daily – do find the time to visit us before Wimbledon jinxes the good weather!