Easy-to-grow alliums provide
one of the
most effective ways to ensure continuing colour and beauty in your garden
after spring-flowering
bulbs have
faded. While you wait for the cheery blooms of summer flowers, it's easy to
enjoy the outstanding features of alliums:
• Exceptionally easy to grow with little concern for soil
conditions.
• Intriguing, unique character of blooms that are a delight to
behold .
• Great ornamental value after flowering because flower heads
continue to provide an interesting display even after
colors have faded.
• Great in dried arrangements.
• Ability to naturalize exceptionally well by multiplying year
after year for increased beauty.
• Distasteful flavour for animals, so they won¹t eat any part of
them.
• Attractive to hummingbirds!
Alliums come in all shapes and sizes and
are lots of fun to grow. They fit into almost any garden setting and
provide a much-needed bridge of color between spring and summer flowers.
Sometimes called "ornamental onions," alliums do best in full sun with
well-drained,
fertile soil and good moisture. Plant them in September or October about
20-25 cm deep. Allium really look best in
the company of other summer bloomers. Sweet alyssum, rock cress, bachelor's
buttons, coreopsis, sweet
William, foxglove, baby's
breath,
daylily, iris, red hot
poker, coralberry, barberry, Japanese maple, Deutzia rosea, weigela and
Geranium pratense are just some of the companion plants that look fantastic
with alliums.