Alliums aren’t really specimen plants. To get the very best out of them, you need to plant a large crowd of them, so that their heads bump together as they pack out your borders for a few weeks in May. It’s difficult to imagine a better early summer plant which stitches your entire garden together.
Image by Rachel
From start to finish, these plants will bring so much character to your garden. Their flower spikes duck and weave their way upwards, and slowly and seductively unzip until the enormous pom-pom head of flowers pops out.
In their decline they are just as lovely, with the flowers facing to little fists of seeds. I tend to pick them once the flowers have disappeared, and leave them to dry in my shed. This isn’t just because I am a little uptight about my borders always looking just-so, but also so that the bulb doesn’t entirely exhaust itself. I leave the leaves to fade and wither as they throw their energy back into storage in the bulb, and give them a couple of high potash feeds of comfrey tea to encourage a good flowering show next year.
Meanwhile, the flowerheads are drying, turning a lovely golden and splitting open to reveal the litttle black seeds inside. If I’m in a year of sowing more alliums for a fantastic show a couple of years down the line, then I’ll pick out all of these seeds for sowing the following spring. But if I’m not, then ‘ll save the heads, and stick them back in the ground when the frosts come for some fantastic architectural displays in mid-winter.
Image by Mercedes Blanco
The most popular (and in my view the most beautiful) are Allium hollandicum and Allium christophii. The former has the best display of pom-pom heads and is perfectly obliging to grow as well, while the latter produces a firework display of flowers on a shorter flowering spike. A. christophii can look a bit messy from a distance, so plant with other dreamy plants for an informal look.
Plant bulbs in September or October, 6in deep in the soil. Gardeners cursed with chalky soil will be thrilled to learn that alliums actually like alkaline conditions, as well as all other soil types.
This is part of a new series, A-Z of the best plants. Look our for ‘B is for…’ next week.
