Sunday, February 29, 2004

Flowering onions

The various varieties of ornamental allium do smell like onion or garlic, but they're really pretty and make good dried flowers. I suppose that what we enjoy year after year are allium cowanii and allium multibulbosum. We added some of the latter once, meaning to be planting the former. There are very small pink ones and white ones that are regarded as weeds and grow where they will. They're really just as good-looking as the ones people pay for. Amidst our Montopolis narcissi are two tiny, tiny tazettas that are more yellow than butter and not at all sharp in color, borne on very long stems, and with very tiny flowers and even tinier cups. We have never seen anything like them anywhere. We're also seeing our first wood hyacinths. These are better than true hyacinths, although without the scent; we always called them wood hyacinths or squills, and we're seeing the first of them now. The first of our single jonquils will open tomorrow, and there'll be lots of them, with no signs of bud blast. And we're still enjoying Avalanche. There are no signs of Jack Snipe, Baby Moon, April Tears, or Golden Dawn. We've had a couple of Silver Chimes for the first time in ages, but they're fragile and don't last all that long. Our paperwhites are going now.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home