A hardy, neat and multicoloured evergreen agapanthus has been capturing hearts everywhere
As our climate has changed and as more and more new varieties have appeared on the market, agapanthus have been grown by more and more gardeners. There’s now an astonishing five pages of them in the latest
RHS Plant Finder and one of the newest,
Agapanthus Fireworks (‘Mdb001’), has received multiple awards.
Not only has
Agapanthus Fireworks received the
Award of Garden Merit following an RHS plant trial that ended in 2017 but it was placed third in this year’s
Chelsea Plant of the Year Competition. It also won Best In Show at the New Plant Awards trade show.
So what’s so special about
Agapanthus Fireworks? Large umbels carry generous clusters of around 90 upright white buds. These become pendulous as the fluted florets begin to open, showing off clearly defined, rich blue outer bases and white flaring petal tips. The light-coloured florets contrast against dark flower stems.
At the Chelsea Plant of the Year presentations. Peter van Rijssen of Plantipp, who are marketing the plant, empathised what makes it stand out. “It has bigger blooms,” he said, “it has more florets per umbel, it has more flower stems per plant and it has also been awarded the AGM in the most recent agapanthus trials. It has proved to be more hardy than other evergreen agapanthus, to about -10°C, and it has short, neat, very clean green foliage. It’s also resistant to crown rot so in the garden it performs year after year.”
Agapanthus Fireworks was selected by Quinton Bean & Andrew de Wet of De Wet Plant Breeders at their South African nursery. In 2008 they crossed two unnamed seedlings from their own breeding programme and in 2010 selected this plant from about 12,000 seedlings.
You can order
Agapanthus Fireworks (‘Mdb001’) from these
RHS Plant Finder nurseries and will be available to order later in summer from
RHS Plants and
Thompson & Morgan.
You can read about the agapanthus trial in the July 2019 issue of
The Garden.
*Please note, the contents of this blog reflect the views of its author, which are not necessarily those of the RHS.
