Agapanthus

Agapanthus holds ground that little else will hold. Strappy evergreen clumps sit along driveway edges, hot nature strips, dry banks and coastal front gardens all year, then push up flower heads through summer on very little input. The full-size forms suit a long run to fill, a slope you would rather not mow, or a bed that bakes in western sun, and they are worth buying in numbers and repeating along a line rather than one at a time. The dwarf selections are the ones for a small bed or a pot.

The stocked range splits three ways. The species forms, Agapanthus orientalis Blue and Agapanthus orientalis White, are the traditional Agapanthus praecox types: tall, vigorous, roughly waist high in flower, and the pick for mass planting or a bank. The compact selections stay much lower and hold their shape in pots and at the front of a border. Baby Pete and Baby Periwinkle are dwarf and dense, while Silver Baby carries cream variegation in the leaf, so the clump stays light out of flower. Third are the newer breeding lines grown for a longer season and stronger colour: Blue Storm and Sea Storm come in 170mm only, Blush Pink steps away from blue altogether, and Agapetite, Bingo Blue, Brilliant Blue, Perpetual Peace and Fireworks fill out the smaller sizes. Pots across this collection run 140mm to 200mm, so everything here is establishing stock rather than advanced plants. Agapanthus bulks up quickly from that size, which is what makes planting a whole edge in one go affordable.

Full sun and drainage do most of the work. Agapanthus that never flower have almost always been given shade, nitrogen, or both. Less than about half a day of direct sun, or a bed where lawn fertiliser washes through, builds a large healthy clump of leaves and no flower stems. Gardeners usually respond by feeding it more, which makes it worse. Plant in full sun or close to it, feed once in early spring with a low-nitrogen or flowering-type fertiliser, and keep lawn feed off the bed. Set the crown level with the soil, pull mulch back clear of it, water through the first summer, then leave them alone. Cut spent heads off before they set seed, because praecox types seed freely and are treated as an environmental weed in parts of Victoria and coastal New South Wales. Lift and divide congested clumps every few years, once flowering starts to thin.

For the rest of a low-input scheme, lomandra and grasses give the same strappy structure without the summer flower, low maintenance covers the wider tough-plant range, and flowering has the shrubs to plant behind them. Otherwise browse shop all plants. Every order ships farm-direct with flat $99 delivery across QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA, a $399 minimum order, and the 30-Day Healthy Plant Guarantee.