I Love my Alliums

Ah, the lowly onion.  Many people would never believe that these blooms come from the same family as the onion you slice up each night for your dinner.  But they do.


See those little white caps behind the Smoke bush?  It is an allium called 'nigrum'.  At least that is what I ordered.  Here is a close up:

It looks a lot like allium 'Jade eye' to me.  Whatever it is, I like it.

Aren't these  strange flower buds? 

 I have about ten of these. They are called 'hair' allium.  When the flower opens, it looks like a bunch of green scraggly hair!

I love this one, just for its shock factor.

I also have yellow allium Moly 'Sunny Twinkles':

These are short with lemony clusters of tiny star-shaped flowers and are the first to bloom each spring.

Here is 'Christopherii':

It was twice this big the first year.  I planted 8 or 9 of these. This is the only one left after just a few years.


I planted 'drumstick' many years ago:

This one has multipled ten fold.   Here is a nice little bunch from a few years ago:

This little 'azure' is a pretty blue color, but it did not survive in my garden .  I planted 12 of them two years ago and have none left.

I keep replanting the bigger purple-ball varities, but they also never last more than a year or two. 
Look how many I had in 2006:

None of these are left. I have to treat them like annuals if I want to admire them each spring.  I did miss them this year, so I will probably plant a few this fall.

Does anyone else have problems with these coming back?