How should I tidy up my agapanthus prior to winter?
Chris Fitzpatrick, Upton, Wirral
Stefan says: You ask if you can safely reduce the length of the leaves to tidy up your evergreen agapanthus prior to mulching them for the winter. I assume your plants are growing in the open ground rather than in containers and will, therefore, be outdoors all winter.
Yes, by all means cut back some of the foliage to tidy them, but don't do more than is really necessary because the plants will need all the protection they can muster over the coming months if the winter turns out to be cold.
My evergreen agapanthus ‘Rosewarne’ plants are in containers and we take them into the greenhouse for protection around now and find that for the first few weeks, the outer leaves turn yellow but things then settle down.