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Agapanthus 'Purple Delight' (Purple Delight Lily of the Nile) - An evergreen perennial that forms clumps of 12 to 18 inch long by 1 inch wide arching bright green leaves. In early summer arise numerous 3-foot-tall stems bearing heads of dark buds that open to very dark violet-blue funnel-shaped flowers - begins flowering a bit later than other cultivars (mid-July here in Santa Barbara).
Plant in full sun to light shade in most any soil type and give occasional irrigation. Should prove hardy and evergreen to 20-25 degrees F. This cultivar produces abundant dark purple flowers and should be great for massing as a groundcover or used individually as an accent plant and has an excellent vase life as a cut flower up to 14 days.
The name Agapanthus is derived from the Greek words 'agapé', meaning "love" or "friendship" and 'anthos', meaning "flower" and it is for this reason that "Love Flower" is sometimes given as its common name, though there does not seem to be any colloquial usage of this name and the reason for naming as such remains unclear. Some have suggested that the translation could be interpreted as "lovely flower", "flower of love" or if the name originated from the word 'Agapeo' which means "to be contented with" it could just refer to a flower Charles Louis L'Héritier, who first used the name Agapanthus. A good accounting of this is presented by Wim Snoeijer in his Agapanthus: A Revision of the Genus Timber Press 2004 but essentially Carl Linnaeus (the father of modern taxonomy) in 1753 published the name Crinum africanum for a plant likely brought back to Holland from the Cape of Good Hope by the year 1679. In 1789 Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle, the Director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, changed the name of this plant to Agapanthus but used the invalid specific epithet umbellatus instead of preserving Linnaeus species name africanus. This mistake has perpetuated naming problems within the genus ever since. In addition, the common "Lily of the Nile" is often used for this plant even though this plant originated in South Africa and not along the Nile River.
Agapanthus 'Purple Delight' was a chance seedling that first flowered in 2001 and was selected by Richard Jamieson of Black Dog Plants, an Agapanthus specialty nursery in Cape Town, South Africa. Our plants first came to us as part of a Agapanthus trial in Spring 2014 from Ball Horticulture. We grew this plant at our nursery from 20015 until 2025.
Information displayed on this page about Agapanthus 'Purple Delight' is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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