My dining room has neither Branagh nor Poirot, but it does have an all-star cast of plants, including the exotic sounding lily of the Nile.\u00a0 The plant is clad in simple green leaves, and situated in a fetching faux-Grecian urn.\u00a0 Every day my lily of the Nile hints strongly at a need for division and replanting.<\/p>\n
I will take the universe\u2019s signal and do two things as soon as possible\u2014see Death on the Nile<\/em>, and decant my Lily of the Nile.\u00a0 The former will improve the quality of my life; the latter will boost the quality of flowers that the plant will produce later on.<\/p>\n The ancestors of my lily of the Nile, or Agapanthus, as it is known botanically, never saw Egypt or even the smallest Nile tributary.\u00a0 They did, however, hail from Africa, specifically parts of South Africa and Mozambique.\u00a0 Plant taxonomists love to fuss with names and classifications, and over time, agapanthus has resided in the lily, amaryllis, and onion genera, before returning to the amaryllis genus.\u00a0 After all that wearisome traveling, agapanthus was finally parked in its own genus, Agapanthaceae.<\/p>\n The generic confusion is somewhat understandable, because the plants have trumpet-shaped individual flowers that look a bit like those of amaryllis or lilies, but those flowers form into large rounded clusters or umbels, like some members of the onion family.\u00a0 The upright, strap-like leaves might fit into any of those genera.<\/p>\n Fleshy-rooted agapanthus plants first found their way north as they accompanied European explorers returning from southern Africa in 1679.\u00a0 The Latin genus name comes from the Greek \u201cagape\u201d for \u201clove\u201d and \u201canthos\u201d, meaning \u201cflower\u201d.\u00a0 I suspect the \u201clily of the Nile\u201d sounded exotic and romantic to someone with enough influence to stick it firmly to the plant.<\/p>\n No matter what you call it, agapanthus is gorgeous.\u00a0 Rising from generous clumps of arching leaves, the flower stems may be up to 48 inches tall.\u00a0 Mature plants may produce many big umbels during the late spring and summer with flowers in all shades of blue, from very pale to dark blue-purple.\u00a0 White hybrids are also popular.\u00a0 Though perennial, agapanthus is not hardy in cold winter areas, so many people either treat them as annuals or overwinter them inside.<\/p>\n Browsing the catalog and online offerings, you can see that breeders have had more than a few flings with lily of the Nile. The plants also hybridize freely with one another, so growers sometimes find new and different agapanthus surprises in their fields or green houses.<\/p>\n Some hybrid offerings are statuesque, like \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019, with darkest blue flowers on three to four foot stalks. \u2018Stevie\u2019s Wonder\u2019 is similar in color, with somewhat shorter stalks.\u00a0 \u2018Twister\u2019 is also tall, bearing \u00a0orbs of bi-colored trumpets that are white at the petal tips and violet at the bases.<\/p>\n For something small, dark and handsome, try \u2018Back in Black\u2019, with dark blue flowers and purple stems that rise to only two feet.\u00a0 Even shorter at 12 to 18 inches tall, with near-black flowers, \u2018Black Pantha\u2019 will succeed nicely in containers.\u00a0 \u2018Peter Pan\u2019 is also short, with stems topping out at 18 to 24 inches and sky-blue umbels.<\/p>\n Generous balls of clean white flowers pop up in several varieties, including \u2018Bressingham White\u2019, which is tall, at about four feet; and the slightly smaller, \u2018Getty White\u2019, which sports stems between two and four feet tall.<\/p>\n The best display of agapanthus that I have seen was at an estate garden where an allee of sky blue specimens growing in large tubs lined a long walkway that led to an ornamental water feature.\u00a0 Since the estate was in a cold winter area, I suspect that it took several strong individuals to get those tubs into winter quarters.<\/p>\n Unlike some great beauties, lily of the Nile is relatively unfussy.\u00a0 Outdoors they grow best in free-draining soil warmed by full sun or the lightest possible shade.\u00a0 Laziness is a virtue with agapanthus, as they do best when slightly pot-bound.\u00a0 Eventually though, the day will come when the plants will start pushing out of their containers and need division.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid; be bold.\u00a0 Take the plant out of the container and apply a sharp garden knife to cut the agapanthus into divisions, making sure that each division has a generous serving of attached roots.\u00a0 Repot in fresh soil, water thoroughly and feed with a balanced fertilizer, diluted, if necessary, according to manufacturer\u2019s directions.<\/p>\n If you are overwintering plants, water infrequently and position in a sunny indoor space.\u00a0 Return them to the garden when night temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n People with money to spare can buy enough agapanthus for an allee fairly easily.\u00a0 If you do not fit into that category, buy several, treat them well and divide as they outgrow their containers.\u00a0 Check out the offerings at Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Rd, Raleigh, NC 27603; 919-772-4794<\/a>; www.plantdelights.com.<\/p>\n Sometimes the universe sends signals so strong they simply can\u2019t be ignored.\u00a0 In my case, those signals add up to a cosmic call of the Nile. Over the past few weeks, I have been seeing trailers for the latest screen adaptation of Agatha Christie\u2019s great mystery, Death on the Nile.\u00a0 It has an all-star cast, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2659,23,150,24,25,1282,91,1931],"class_list":["post-3613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-agapanthaceae-family","tag-agapanthus","tag-blue-flowers","tag-lily-of-the-nile","tag-nile-lily","tag-south-african-plants","tag-summer-flowers","tag-tender-perennials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Agapanthus\"](\"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Agapanthus-300x238.jpg\")
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