I shouldn't discriminate. It's not even based on anything sound. They're just everywhere. Like they somehow demand a right to be there. In every suburb, every home. Bloody Agapanthus. They don't even come in a singular version, there is no word for a singular Agapanthus. Just like Tim Tams, you can't stop at one. I should like them because at the moment they are the only thing thriving in our very dry garden, and that's without any attention from me. As chief provider of water to screaming thirsty plants, I admit to skipping the Agapanthus in favour of the geraniums. It's wrong I know, favouring one child over another but they are overly represented across the State's stone walls and driveways. Google tells me they're of Greek origin (blue and white, the flag, of course...) and perhaps they consider our piddly Tasmanian 29 degrees not even warm compared to a blistering Rhodes summer and so wave their long arms in defiance. I should be grateful that such a robust plant can survive the lack of water. Considering their other name is Lily of the Nile, and given we're sufficiently short on Nile, it's more like Lily of the dry brown paddock really. Perhaps they are just misunderstood. Still won't water them.
I should think not. Water 'em I mean. They're bloody environmental weeds over here. There are other, more suitable 'tufties' here, even indigenous ones (how about Dianella longifolia, the Pale Flax-lily, with EDIBLE berries no less). Everyone plants them here (those that have no environmental awareness or caring anyway) and they're impossible to get rid of. They've escaped into natural bush reserves to the detriment of the local ecosystems and the angst of the volunteers who have to try and remove them. Send 'em all back to the Nile and drown 'em in it, I say!
ReplyDeleteI laughed so hard when I read this. Love it.
DeleteI used to hate agapanthus also until we moved out here to our 4 acres on the Tamar River. Suddenly they were the plant that didn't need any care, that possums and wallabies hated and that despite a complete lack of water, lined our driveway and flowered reliably year after year. I went from hating them to loving them in one fell swoop. Now if only I could learn the same for the Scotch thistles, the sow thistles and the blackberries...
ReplyDeleteYeah I'd like a word with the settler guy from bonnie Scotland who was so homesick he decided to bring out those bloody thistles...
DeleteAnd don't forget the gorse. I couldn't believe it when I was told that it was actually imported due to homesick Scotsmen!
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