As the summer progresses an increasing amount of the colour in the garden comes from plants originating in South Africa. In the gravel turning circle Agapanthus provide a generous splash of blue. I bought my plants as 'Headbourne Hybrids', a strain developed in the 1950s and 1960s by the Hampshire gardener Lewis Palmer from seed received from the Kirstenbosch garden. The name used to be a sign of quality, but fifty years on so many generations have been raised from seed without any guarantee that only the best of each batch were kept that you might get practically anything. However, my plants are good enough, and have spread themselves generously by seeding. I said this once to another keen gardener, who rather bossily replied that her plants didn't seed, and surely I meant that they spread by runners. However, I have never found a single running root and I am sure they self-seed. This, after all, is how the strain was developed. Agapanthus have become very popular in recent years, and the number of named varieties on offer is bewildering. I have a few named ones in pots, chosen largely for their late flowering, but for reliable garden performance the 'Headbourne Hybrids' seem fine. Some recent introductions have huge flowerheads, but for general garden use I think umbels of around 10-12cm across are more in scale.
The 'Headbourne Hybrids' come in a range of blues, all with a definite hint of purple, from soft violet to a rich mid blue. The individual funnel shaped flowers are held in drumstick shaped open umbels, unlike some varieties whose flowers hang down, and each individual flower is subtly striped when viewed close up. They are generous and prolific in their flowering, and the plants, which are fully deciduous, came through the last two winters unscathed. They are on very sharp drainage and mulched with gravel, and given a soggier site the outcome might have been different. The 'Headbourne Hybrids' are deciduous with fairly narrow leaves, and I believe that in general Agapanthus of this type are hardier than the evergreens and those with broad leaves.
In the back garden Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is coming into full bloom. Strictly speaking they are seedlings of 'Lucifer', as I started with a couple of seedlings from a friend and have raised more since, and kept any seedlings I found in the border, but they look very like the 'Lucifer' I see for sale, even if I should not call them that. The plants are tall, the leaves pushing 1m in length, and arching gently. The flowers are that shade of bright red conventionally described as 'flame like', and they are very bright, but not harsh. They are carried in spikes at the ends of long, gracefully curved stems, and open over a period of time, starting at the base of the spike. When the flowers are over a fascinating row of bobble shaped seed pods provides low-key entertainment for the autumn. 'Lucifer' is a hybrid of C. masoniorum and C. paniculata, both of which tolerate relatively droughty conditions according to the RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials, and 'Lucifer' has inherited this characteristic. I grow it in a dry, open bed where other occupants include Cistus (when the winter has not killed them) and a Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum, and 'Lucifer' is doing well. Some other Crocosmia varieties need moist conditions, and some are not terribly cold hardy, and you may see them running wild in Cornish gardens, but for gardeners in the dry south-east of England 'Lucifer' is a winner.
The third of my stalwart South Africans is Berkheya purpurea, which grows in another part of the gravel garden. Berkheya are not offered for sale very often, and most species have yellow flowers, but I raised mine from seed and both germination and aftercare were pretty easy. Don't overwater them in their pots. They start flowering at a young age and B. purpurea, as you would expect, has purple flowers. It is a member of the daisy family, and has typical daisy flowers with many (infertile) ray petals around a central (fertile) boss, carried up prickly stems around 40cm high. The leaves form a basal rosette, which increases with age to form multiple rosettes, and the leaves are grey and hairy with scalloped edges. Rather surprisingly for such a prickly plant it appears to be attractive to snails, and seems less prone to be eaten in the middle of the gravel than when I tried to grow it in a mixed border. In the winter it disappears completely, the growth points being buried somewhere underground, but my plants made it through last winter and are there again this year with few or no losses. I combine them with teasels (not South African), Morina (which is not proving so long-lasting as the Berkheya) and Yucca (which used to be in pots, where they insisted on flowering and then the top growth died, so they were evicted and are now sending up multiple shoots from the base).
Of course the bedding geraniums in pots in the Italian garden are all derived from species from South Africa. Goodness knows what those dainty-flowered wildlings would make of the huge and gaudy blooms of their descendents.
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