Agapanthus Baby Periwinkle

Baby Periwinkle is a dwarf agapanthus selection: a low, tidy evergreen clump of strappy leaves carrying soft periwinkle blue heads on short, self supporting stems. Scale is the whole argument for it. A standard agapanthus sprawls across whatever it edges, while this one holds its line along a driveway, on top of a retaining wall or through a hot median strip, which is why it turns up in mass plantings and narrow borders where the taller forms simply do not fit.

Where a dwarf agapanthus earns its place

It suits most Australian gardens outside genuine alpine cold, and it is at its easiest in coastal and suburban conditions: sandy or gravelly ground, reflected heat off paving and driveways, salt laden wind off the water. Heavier clay works if the bed is raised or opened up with coarse compost first, because the fleshy roots resent sitting in cold water through winter. Full sun to part shade suits it, and water needs are low to moderate once the clump has settled in. Planted about three to a metre along an edge, the clumps knit into a continuous band within a couple of seasons. The failure mode is shade. Agapanthus survives dim positions almost indefinitely, so the plant looks healthy while producing nothing at all, and the usual response is to feed it, which only makes more leaf. A green, fat, flowerless clump nearly always means too little direct sun, or a clump left undivided for so many years that the crowns are strangling each other underground. Both are fixable, but neither is fixed by fertiliser.

Baby Periwinkle or the full sized blue

The obvious comparison is Agapanthus orientalis Blue, the tall seeding form that binds banks together and flowers under established gums. Pick that one for rough ground, embankments and dry root filled soil where little else establishes, and accept that you will be deadheading it to keep seed out of the wider landscape. Pick Baby Periwinkle where the planting runs beside a path, a driveway or a window and the flower heads need to stay below eye level. For the same low, sun tolerant, mass planted look with colour spread over a longer stretch of the warm season rather than one concentrated summer flush, compare it against Stella Citron. There are more options in low maintenance planting.

Cutting back and feeding a dwarf clump

Cut spent flower stems out at the base as they finish rather than leaving them to set seed. In late winter, strip the tattered outer leaves away by hand and check the leaf bases for snails, which shelter in there and shred new growth before it clears the crown. Feed once in early spring with a complete general purpose fertiliser, or dig well rotted compost in around the clump, and repeat after flowering if the soil is sandy and hungry. Skip high nitrogen lawn food, which pushes leaf at the expense of flower. Lift and divide when the flowering starts to thin, replanting the vigorous outer pieces and discarding the woody centre. Wear gloves for that job, since agapanthus sap irritates skin and eyes.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 140mm, at $16.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.