[ormondsview]

Not much selection in local stores for bulbs except for usual tulips and daffodils. The pink variety of fairy lilies have me jealous that the many $ spent for summer flowering bulbs only got me 2 pinks doing a show at this time. Am going to plant a blue S African native flower from seed that is hard to come by in garden centres and takes about 3 years to mature. To me they are elegant and coveted because of a nostalgia for Californian gardens. There's a special light by the sea that imitates Californian sun and makes for superb growth of particular plants alone. Agapanthus. Has anyone managed to get these to grow and under what conditions?

[Sive]

I'm still waiting for mine to flower....2 or 3 years after planting. Lovely green leaves, no flowers,sheltered west-facing dry-ish bed.
Yet they grow like weeds in many suburban Dublin gardens.

[Good guy]

I grow agapanthus successfully here in Donegal. They are planted in a bed at the base of a SW facing wall in fertile, well drained (but not dry) soil. They flower reliably for me. I planted some of a deeper blue in a big pot at the end of the summer and I'm hoping they'll do well. I have read that they do better if the roots are restricted a bit. Those in my bed are only restricted by the competition from their neighbours, though: Fatsia Japonica, a vigorous clematis and Yucca Filimentosa.
I saw the white variety grown to great effect in France earlier this year and I know of a garden on Arranmore island where they grow well, on a SE facing slope, in gritty soil, in an open bed.