Alliums

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 allium bulbs in the fall, ususally in September or October, about 20-25 cm deep. Alliums 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.

What are Common Allium Pests and Diseases

Aside from the occasional snail and slug, alliums are, for the most part, pest and disease-free. In fact, the scent of these bulbs is actually a deterrent for deer and rodents. The presence of allium can actually protect your other bulbs from damage!

Should you find holes in your alliums' leaves, the most common perpetrator is a slug or snail. Use diatomaceous earth, beer traps, or slug bait to relieve your garden of those pests. Garden pest spray for ornamentals can also help eliminate aphids, earwigs, and other pests.

 

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