Agapanthus

Agapanthi and hydrangeas bloom on brown-stone front steps, and an occasional elm wears majestically its century of age, and extends its kindly and dignified protection to the emerald-turfed croquet ground nestling at its feet.

Even the succulent blue lilies—a variety of the agapanthus which is so familiar to us in English greenhouses—hung their long trumpet-shaped flowers and looked oppressed and miserable, beneath the burning breath of the hot wind which had been blowing for hours like the draught from a volcano.

Here in their season grow the blue agapanthus, the wild watsonia, and the red-hot poker, and now and then it happens that one may glimpse an arum in a dell.

Seferis, who was just back from Africa after years abroad, seemed to gaze at us between the agapanthi and jacarandas.

Peregrina chatted with animation about the flowers she would sow around it, azaleas, lilies, agapanthi, and the vegetables she could plant in the open spaces, and enough garlic to make the earth smell like broth.