"A-GUH-PAN-THUHS"

I first spotted this blue flowering plant while walking along Sydney’s fabulous horseshoe harbor 15 years ago. It was January 2, 2006. Mr. Wonderful and I were still staggering and bleary-eyed after the 14-hour three-movie Qantas flight from Los Angeles on this second day of our six-week-long “down under” trek. 

The air was blisteringly hot with thermometer readings above 110 F, but I remember thinking how cool those blue flowers were.

A week later I saw those blue flowers again in Melbourne at Queen Victoria’s Gardens. And, a few days after that, as we drove deep into the Australian bush, I noticed them lining the driveway curving to the large ranch house where we’d be staying for a few days. The owner of the sheep station told me they were called “a-guh-pan-thuhs.”

Unlike my sainted mother who never strolled through any or anyone’s garden without sneaking a few seeds into her pocket (brazenly, I may add), it never occurred to me to snip off a lush blue blossom and stuff it into the bottom of my suitcase. (I follow rules. I still have the DO NOT REMOVE tags on my bedroom mattresses.) But I knew I wanted to find “a-guh-pan-thuhs” when we got back to the States.

The following summer I looked everywhere, combed catalogs, asked Seacoast Garden Club friends much savvier than I, but to no avail. Then suddenly three years ago, I chanced upon them blooming in the noonday sun at Estabrooks Nursery in Kennebunk. I was positively giddy and bought four.

For the next month and a half, they sat on the back deck in blue ceramic pots next to my white wicker sofa and chairs, and were positively ….. underwhelming. No big tall green spiky leaves, no royal blue blossoms, not even a hint of them. Nada. Even Mr. W., who doesn’t know a daisy from a daffodil, asked, “Are they ever going to do anything?"

Until one mid-July day….VOILA! They bloomed, and bloomed again, all the way into early October. They’ve been the headliners on my back deck ever since, over in Kennebunk Beach and here in the Wells woods.

Come late fall, we snip off the stalks, say a quick “winter well, dear ones,” then put the shorn plants, still in their pots, under a bench in the garage where they hibernate. In late May, we move them out to the deck and say a resurrection prayer. 

It takes a while. Patience is required. Even when they start to show limp signs of life, it’s not much. They take their time getting ready for prime time but by mid-July, VOILA!  

Last week we cut them back and I put them in the garage. The Farmers Almanac suggests we’re facing a long cold winter here along the southern Maine coast, but I get warm and fuzzy thinking how my fabulous blue bloomers will return in full floral glory next July.