Cut flower allium season

It was an expediency, but it works. Back when I picked up Andrew’s bulb order in the autumn I ran out of time to plant my bulbs.

Not ran out so much as found myself behind schedule. I do like a prompt planting of the bulbs.

But the alliums seemed to be ‘just one more thing on the list’.

Tulips of course are the distracted and busy gardener’s balm. Those don’t need planting until the very end of the year and even January when one is pressed.

So what to do? I did buy those 30 ten litre planting pots which a potato grower was selling off for fifty cents a pot. Why not use them?

There were meant to be for the dahlias, but I decided that few needed dividing in the winter. And I tended to use them just for pebble / gravel work anyway.

So fast allium planting day. Where is there one surefire place in this garden where the soil is already soft and largely moist?

The raised beds of the potager.

No digging required. So in the very ends of all the raised beds in went the ten litre pots with half a dozen bulbs each. Covered up and largely forgotten over the winter.

It works.

And let’s face it, the leaves of alliums once the flowers get going are unsightly. So once this amazing display is over, I can lift the whole pot and put it somewhere else. Or just cover it over with mulch and hope for a display next year.

Mind you, I rarely get returns. The effort that goes into producing these mighty wondrous flowers plum tuckers them out for a return showing in our climate.

There are a a few allium christophii bulbs that surprise me each year. Under the apricot tree and the fig.

They even survived the building work when we created this lean to wood store and my gorgeous terrace.

But on a whole I rather accept that these are a one month wonder and do beautifully in a vase.

And then can be dried and brought out again at season’s end.

This one is allium Toabago :

Quite the monster.

I had to cut it and bring it in as it snagging me on the path each time I plodded past.