Blue and purple kangaroo paws really sound/look unusual, and could be gems for the right garden, but just not mine.
The problem with Agapanthus is that it does not bloom the same time as the bearded irises, at least not here. I have the standard light-medium blue ones that are evergreen, and also a dark blue one that is deciduous. It's been a battle keeping that latter one alive, although I love the color. I had to take the survivor (1 of 3) out of the ground and pot it; I'm not sure if the heavy clay soil + too much water in that spot did for the others, or (I think more likely given the lack of roots) if the gophers did for them.
I've been thinking about it, and I suppose that "red" irises are underrepresented in this garden (and to a lesser extent orange irises as well), but every red iris that I've ever seen (and this includes frankly burgundy irises) has muddy color. Ditto too for at least some of the orange irises. I hate mud in my flowers, and that is the reason that I punted the TB iris LEST WE FORGET some years ago. (And then I ground my teeth and bought it back, just for hybridizing because of its combo of two certain traits: PBF plus at least one reliable rebloom.)
Arguably most flowers have varying degrees of mud in them. In (muddy) yellow daylilies you often at first glance can't even tell it's there (but it subsequently shows up in hybridizing; Patrick Stamile referred to this as a "muddiness gene" though I doubt it's that simple).
A little mud is tolerable (especially for more "background" plants) if it is not too egregious, and the plant has some redeeming feature(s). (I have an orange daylily (whose name escapes me at the moment) which has awful mud, but it's out in the Back 40 and situated such that I never have to really see the mud (except when deadheading), but get the benefit of the splash of color.) At least some of the reblooming yellow irises that I have seen have mud in them; arguably the rebloom redeems the plant.
But there comes a point when too much mud destroys the garden utility of the bloom, I think. Beyond that, it's best to find some other cultivar (even going to some other species, if necessary), to get the desired color.
