There is something wonderful about a plant that gives you color, pizzazz, longevity, reliability, and style. Many varieties of the ornamental onion (Alliumspp.) do all that, and more: they brush the mixed border with an artistic touch, dotting the garden with statuesque, floral sculpture.

Spring bulbs are beloved for their brilliance and promise of renewal. The tulips, daffodils, squill, grape hyacinths, and dozens of smaller bulbs, start the growing season with a colorful hurrah! Lilies pick up the bulb show later on, with Asiatic lilies the first to show their saturated open faces and Orientals (if they are fortunate enough to survive the rabbits) coming later in summer, broadcasting fragrance and elegance in spite of their splotches and speckles. In between all this action are the alliums, bridging spring and summer with a surprising array of color (purple, yellow, blue, pink, and white), height and flower shape (golf ball, tennis ball, baseball, softball, or the diminutive bells).

Alliums in your Garden

Planted in fall, at the same time you dig the ground to pop in tulips and daffodils, most allium bulbs have little problem with our cold winters. A few types might be considered “annuals,” especially if you garden in heavy clay. Alliums are native to sandy, dry soils with excellent drainage—Siberia, eastern Europe, Turkey, and the lands once known as Persia. As gardeners in Chicago have learned, good drainage has a positive effect on hardiness and can bump up a plant’s chance for that coveted “reliable return.”

Alliums have earned extra points lately due to their wildlife resistance. As members of the onion family (the ornamental, not the edible side of the family), they are shunned by rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and other animals. Some cautious gardeners weave allium and daffodil bulbs throughout their lily beds as a protective barrier around the more desirable lilies in an effort to outfox the fox.

Allium Blooms

Allium flowers are long-lasting and attractive, whether left fresh or dried on the stems, cut for indoor display or not. They attract butterflies, do not smell like onions (although the foliage and bulbs often do), and, when happy in their full-sun, well-drained site, can form colonies or self-seed, especially when some of the more humongous flower heads are left on the plant, creating a startling, dried flower arrangement in the middle of an otherwise verdant garden.