Small, ornamental alliums don't smell like onion cousins unless you cut them for indoor arrangements. Intact in garden beds, they provide striking blobs of color on a stick, from shades of lilac to white, pink, blue and yellow.
The bigger specimens, such as A. giganteum, 'Gladiator' and 'Globemaster,' should be considered annuals here. The smaller species can perennialize, but situate them among other, later plants so the alliums' dying foliage will be somewhat masked. You cannot cut back the foliage until it has turned brown, sometime in summer.
They need a sunny position, and they don't like to be in waterlogged soil; automatic sprinkler systems often cause allium bulbs to rot. If you prefer water-wise practices, however, alliums do best in well-drained soil and a dry summer rest.
The large flower heads of some alliums, such as A. schubertii and cristophii, are ornamental when allowed to dry in the garden. Gardeners take their dried starburst shape indoors to arrange in a vase.
Austinite Scott Ogden, in his revised, useful book Garden Bulbs for the South, (Timber Press, $34.95) recommends A. sphaerocephalum (drumsticks) of all the European species. The wine-purple buds sitting atop stems of 12 to 18 inches bloom in mid-June here, so they need protection from afternoon sun. They are easy to grow, he says, and increase rapidly by seed.
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