Know Your Onions

We've been planting more alliums in the garden...they should have been in before now but Christmas kind of got in the way, then I had a pesky virus, then the weather wasn't great...excuses, excuses.....I am the world's greatest procrastinator....a horrid word for a horrid habit, it runs in the family and I'm afraid I've passed it on to my poor son. Procrastinating is not a good thing to do in the garden, as time, and nature, wait for no man...seed sowing, bulb planting, perennial splitting all have to be done at the right time but hey ho, they're in now and hopefully won't be the worse for it.

We had started to plant Purple Sensation in the prairie last year among the crocosmia as this border is all foliage no flower until mid summer. The allium foliage can look a little messy after flowering which the crocosmia foliage will help to hide.  I hadn't realised that the geum Blazing Sunset would flower so perpetually and this produced a pleasant clash of colours, à la Great Dixter. We didn't have enough to reach the end of the bed so they have been continued and bulked up a little. Hopefully they will bulk up themselves in a few years.

We have also planted allium caeruleum azureum in the cottage garden - a lovely clear blue compact head on a tallish stem (2 ft), from siberia so pretty robust and should clump up nicely.

In the cutting field, we have plenty of allium sphaerocephalon which continually increase in numbers but to the point of being useful as opposed to thuggish. Reaching a decent height of almost a metre, they flower for quite a while in midsummer and are very much on trend at the moment, fitting well with prairie style planting.

Finally, my favourite allium - roseum, the rosy garlic - a perfect size for a handtied bouquet, flowers forever (and lasts forever in a vase), with a sweet honey smell and the bees love it...perfect!

The origin of "know your onions"? Check it out here!

Purple Sensation in the prairie border.

Allium sphaerocephalon

Allium roseum

Purple Sensation

Pootling in Paradise

A beautiful winter's day....after a week's break from the garden, due to both the weather and a rotten cold, I headed back out today with my trusty helpers. This was the first day since last week that we weren't frozen - very unusual for our wee peninsula. Mind you, the garden doesn't seem too bothered, everything's growing on merrily.

Today, we removed the old hybrid teas from in front of the blue seat, they just didn't do well enough but the nepeta Walkers Low that we had planted around them, had romped away. So today we lifted and divided them (three year old plants) and added peony Sarah Bernhardt and white phlox to the centre of each small bed. To add spring interest, I have dotted through forget-me-nots that had self sown in the autumn bed. Yikes! Forgot to take a photo - here's one from last year - I just love the nepeta...slugproof, wildlife friendly, beautiful scent, wonderful cut flower, blooms from May till October....need I say more?

By the way, we all need to pootle more apparently....happy days!