Plant in full sun or part shade, with moderate water. Hardy to 20-25 degrees F.

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.

This plant was sent to us by a micropropagation lab as 'Storm Cloud', a plant it does not even closely resemble. We do not know if this plant is the result of a mutation in the lab or just a mix-up with another cultivar, but our supplier insisted that it was what they have as 'Storm Cloud'. We suspect that many plants now in cultivation sold as 'Storm Cloud' are actually this clone, but since we have grown the original 'Storm Cloud' since it was first released and maintained stock of it, we renamed these imposters 'Midnight' to keep then straight from the original. The true 'Storm Cloud' that was introduced by Saratoga Horticultural Foundation in 1993 is a bigger plant with purple staining near the base of longer leaves and has large heads of flowers on stalks that rise 3 feet or more above the ground, twice what this one does, and the flowers appear later in summer. 'Midnight' is a very nice agapanthus with clean foliage that blooms early in the season with dark flowers on short stems. For more information see our listing on the real Agapanthus 'Storm Cloud. 

The information displayed on this page about Agapanthus 'Midnight' is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We 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.