Avoiding watering my agapanthus - but how to do it?!

[WellTidy]

I planted some agapanthus (about 10 or so) in a raised bed last year, and am delighted that they've recently come back as I forgot to mulch around them last winter. The bed is slightly sloping downwards, and I have an azalea, small white hydrangeas, eriseyum bowles mauve, salvia, lavenders, hebes and a very low creeping rose in there as well as the agapanthus. All of the plants are a year or so old.

Obviously, everything needs to be watered, but I've read that agapathus don't like too much water. Whilst that is good to know, I mixed them in amongst all of the other plants which do need a lot of water, especially the hydrangeas. How do I avoid giving the agapanthus too much water whilst ensuring that the other plants have enough, now that they're all in the same bed?!

Can you use a hosepipe and direct the water away from the plants? Or you could put some wood in the soil and separate the areas

Wood in the soil is a good idea. I can't direct water away with the hosepipe as there are plants behind and in front of the agapathus, and the bed slopes downwards from the back to the front (not from side to side, if you see what I mean). I had no idea about things like this last year when I was buying everything that took my fancy and merrily planting in what was to me an aesthetically pleasing way!

Agapanthus love food and water. What they don’t like is cold waterlogged soil over the winter. Water them now, and give them a high potash feed to encourage flowering next year.

Cloche them for winter? You can buy corrugated plastic cloches for salads etc which would do the trick, or even just a piece of glass on top of piled up bricks. When I worked growing rhododendrons we used to use opaque box profile plastic called Correx board. You could just fold it in half and prop it up over the plants. Anything that lets light and air in but keeps the water off would do.

Great info, thanks very much both.