FLOWER FRIDAY - AGAPANTHUS

This beautiful plant, also known as African Lily, is Mr. HCB’s pride and joy! There is a story behind the plants - when we used to go down to Boscombe, we often admired a garden on our way to the Little Pickle Deli Café.  We sometimes spoke to a man working there, who told us it was his wife who was the gardener, he just did the "donkey work".  One day, when we were peering through the trellis fence, the lady of the house came out and spoke to us - we told her we loved her garden and often stopped just to look at its beauty, so she then invited us in - what a joy and pleasure it was to walk round with her!  

She took us into the greenhouse and Mr. HCB was in his element, as you can imagine.  She then gave us lots of plants, including two Agapanthus - we had no car with us, so struggled back to the apartment carrying boxes of plants.  They have since moved and I have to say the garden isn't the same - obviously the new occupants aren't dedicated gardeners like she was.

Every day for the last few days, he has been inspecting the Agapanthus and then telling me that it won’t be long before the flowers are open - and that I would be able to blip it for Flower Friday.  Yesterday he was delighted that one flower was open so how could I possibly refuse?

When our new fire suite was delivered yesterday, inside, as well as quite a lot of polystyrene, there was some diaphanous material, which I immediately grabbed saying that it would make a perfect background for blips - and that’s what I have used today.  I had to balance it quite precariously over two other Agapanthus stems that still had buds but no flowers, and thankfully, they were not damaged in the process - I think murder would have been committed if I had told Mr. HCB that I had snapped off one of his precious stems!

“The most beautiful garden 
     is always the one that 
          we have made 
               with our own efforts!” 
Mehmet Murat ildan

Apologies for not responding to comments yesterday - we were busy in the day and went out unexpectedly in the evening, but thank you for all the stars and hearts for my Abstract Thursday Blip.