Allium

THE ORNAMENTAL ONION

Onions can make for culinary controversy: either you love them or you don’t.

But these ornamental onions (otherwise known as Allium Millenniums) charm just about everyone. We love their large pompon blooms in a rosy-pink to rich lavender. And you can look forward to dozens of poms covering the entire perennial as yours mature to 15″ tall and 18-22″ wide, all on top of strong upright stems. Even the foliage is in on the game, with a compact and full clump that’s deep green and grassy.

Soft lavender flower clusters are held on strong stems above a mound of glaucous blue green foliage. The wide, linear leaves have a slight twist. Compared to ‘Millennium’, ‘Bubble Bath’ has lighter purple flowers on larger 3″ flower clusters. Compared with the bulb-type varieties like ‘Globemaster’, this type of Allium will have smaller, more numerous flower clusters, bloom in summer instead of spring, and have foliage that stays attractive through fall.

Alliums are charming plants for the rock or herb garden. When the foliage is bruised, it smells like onions since they are in the onion family. Butterflies and honeybees adore the flowers’ sweet nectar but deer and rabbits steer clear of this perennial beauty.

Your Alliums are long-blooming, fragrant and drought tolerant, thriving in full to part sun and blooming late into summer just as other color fades.