Time To Plant An Allaria - Choosing A Place, Varieties And Partners For Decorative Bows. Allium. Photo

Table of contents:

Time To Plant An Allaria - Choosing A Place, Varieties And Partners For Decorative Bows. Allium. Photo
Time To Plant An Allaria - Choosing A Place, Varieties And Partners For Decorative Bows. Allium. Photo

Video: Time To Plant An Allaria - Choosing A Place, Varieties And Partners For Decorative Bows. Allium. Photo

Video: Time To Plant An Allaria - Choosing A Place, Varieties And Partners For Decorative Bows. Allium. Photo
Video: Here are the Bows turned out this time! 2024, March
Anonim

The rounded and expressive allium-head inflorescences resemble miniature balloons and create a sense of real celebration in the garden. In order to prolong the joyful atmosphere, as well as attract many insects to the garden, which love to collect nectar from bright inflorescences, whole flower beds can be created from flowering onions. Well-planned "allaria" will delight the grower from spring to the end of summer, and in order to achieve stable decorativeness, it is necessary to take into account all the peculiarities of this culture: choose a suitable place, ensure the correct planting and choose reliable companions.

Allarius
Allarius

Content:

  • When to plant Allium?
  • Choosing a place for planting decorative bows
  • How to plant allium?
  • Do I need to dig up ornamental onions after flowering?
  • Types and varieties of decorative bows
  • Allaria design and best partners for onions

When to plant Allium?

Closer to autumn, more and more colorful packages of bulbs of amazing varieties of allium, which are difficult to resist, begin to appear on the shelves of garden stores. Gardeners have a reasonable question: when to plant allium?

The planting time for decorative bows is really very important not to miss, because this period is rather short. First of all, in order to choose the best time for planting the bulbs in a flower garden, you need to turn to a long-term weather forecast, since the main condition for the successful wintering of an allium is the successful rooting of the bulbs before the onset of negative temperatures.

But, at the same time, there is no need to rush in this matter either, since if forecasters promise a long and warm autumn, the plantings may germinate prematurely and leave weakened in the winter. And severe frosts without snow in such a case will lead to the inevitable death of the sprouts.

Therefore, although the recommended planting time for allium is from late September to late October, first of all, you should pay attention to the weather. Usually, the signal for planting the bows is the beginning of intensive leaf fall, when the daily temperature is set at +10 degrees.

The place for the allaria, first of all, should be sunny, without stagnant water and not too windy
The place for the allaria, first of all, should be sunny, without stagnant water and not too windy

Choosing a place for planting decorative bows

Decorative bows reveal all their original beauty only when conditions are created in the flower garden, close to those that are familiar to plants in the wild. And, as you know, most species of onions live in the mountains or on dry plains, so the place for the allaria, first of all, should be sunny, not wet (without stagnant water) and preferably not too windy in order to avoid lodging of arrows of tall varieties.

If stagnation of spring waters happens in your garden, then in this case the allyarium should be planted in a raised place. With regard to the texture and fertility of the soil: light and moderately fertile soils will be the best for onions.

Allium is not a demanding crop that requires special soil preparation, and bows will thrive in most garden plots. The only exception is very acidic soil, which it is desirable to deacidify beforehand, as well as heavy loam, which requires additional sand.

How to plant allium?

Unfortunately, in the middle lane, many species of allium do not grow at all or grow in mass very slowly, therefore, in order for the flower garden to look spectacular already in the first year, it is better to plant the bulbs in groups and place them rather close to each other.

Usually, allium does not need soaking or any other pre-treatment, but if you find signs of disease (rot, stains, etc.) on the planting material, it is better to first soak the bulbs in a fungicide solution (for example, "Maxim").

The planting process itself is simple - to place a group of alliums in a flower garden, you need to dig a small hole, the depth of which will be three times the height of the bulb. At the same time, it is better to plant less winter-hardy varieties as deep as possible. On too poor soils, compost or complex mineral fertilizer is added to the hole, and on too heavy soils - sand or vermiculite.

If the weather is dry, it is better to spill the planting holes with water to facilitate the process of rooting the bulbs. On top of the planting, you can mulch with peat or mown grass, and for reliability, heat-loving varieties should be additionally covered with spruce branches or straw.

Globemaster decorative bow
Globemaster decorative bow
Christof's Onion (Allium cristophii)
Christof's Onion (Allium cristophii)
Mount Everest Ornamental Bow
Mount Everest Ornamental Bow

Types and varieties of decorative bows

In total, there are about 130 species of allium in the culture, and such an abundance fully compensates for the short flowering period, if the species and varieties are planted taking into account the timing of the appearance of flowering heads. So, the parade of decorative bows is opened by: onions Roseum, Nectaroscordum, Karatavsky, Ostrovsky and Unifolium, which begin to bloom from early to mid-May.

In late May and early June, the relay passes to alliums: Purple Sensation, black onions and chives. And in June and early July, arrows of Moli's onions, blue onions, Schubert, Christoph, dark purple and varieties: Mount Everest, Gladiator, Globemaster, and others begin to bloom in the flower garden.

In July-August, the performance is completed by the latest varieties: Cameleon hybrid, ball-headed onion, slug and Pretty onion (depending on the microclimate of the site, as well as weather conditions, the indicated dates may vary).

At the same time, it is not always worthwhile to rush to cut off the faded onion heads, because the original spheres, even when dried, look structurally and can serve as living mini-sculptures in a flower garden.

It is important to know that some types of allium are ephemeroids, which implies a short period of life, because immediately after flowering, the aboveground part of the plants dies off and there is no trace of them in the flower garden. Therefore, it is better to think in advance which flowers will take their place in the allaria.

Onion moly (Allium moly)
Onion moly (Allium moly)
Black decorative onion (Allium nigrum)
Black decorative onion (Allium nigrum)
Dark purple onion (Allium atropurpureum)
Dark purple onion (Allium atropurpureum)

Do I need to dig up ornamental onions after flowering?

Another important question that often arises when growing allium: is it necessary to dig up decorative onions annually, as is done with varietal tulips? There is no definite answer in this case, since it may depend on several external factors, as well as on the personal decision of the gardener.

Of course, most modern onion varieties will benefit if, after flowering and dying off of the leaves, their bulbs are stored in a dry room with a temperature of + 18 … + 20 degrees until autumn. But when the summer is dry and hot, this technique may not be required.

Many gardeners find this procedure quite troublesome and prefer to update the planting as needed, using new planting material. In any case, on light sandy loam soils without digging, alliums will happily survive much longer than on heavy wet loams.

The annual digging advice mainly applies to modern Western hybrids with large bulbs such as Globemaster, Purple Sensation, Mount Everest and others, as well as Central Asian species such as Christophe's and Schubert's. Small-bulb onions need to be dug much less frequently. And the rhizome varieties of allium (chives and slug onions), the foliage of which remains green throughout the season, need only be periodically divided as the curtain grows, like ordinary perennials.

Christof's bow after flowering
Christof's bow after flowering

Allaria design and best partners for bows

The biological characteristics of this plant are such that the flowering period of most ornamental onions is short, and the leaves die off rather quickly (in some species they begin to turn yellow during flowering). Based on this, you need to understand that using solo onion planting, unfortunately, is hardly possible. And in the "correct" allaria, although allium predominates, there are certainly other ornamental plants that support the architectonics and elegant appearance of the flower garden throughout the season.

So how do you find reliable bow companions? First, the partner plants must maintain the structure of the entire composition and literally themselves always "stay in shape", that is, have dense branchy clumps throughout the season. As you might have guessed, the best contenders for this role are low ornamental shrubs.

Deciduous and evergreen shrubs in allaria

Of the deciduous representatives of this group, first of all, pay attention to the numerous varieties of Japanese spirea. The bushes of this dwarf shrub are both completely crumbs - about 15 centimeters, and relatively high up to 60 centimeters, therefore they can be used in joint plantings with various types of onions, the varieties of which also vary in height.

In addition, the spirea lends itself perfectly to a haircut and will not hide from the eyes of the soloists of the ensemble, whose elegant balls will rise above the dense pillows of bright dense foliage. By the way, the palette of Japanese spirea varieties seems to be specially selected to harmonize with the lilac inflorescences of alliums, because in most cases its leaf blades are yellow (Golden Princess, Golden Carpet, Candlelight), yellow-red (Magic Carpet, Goldflame) or emerald green (Japanese Dwarf, Little Princess, Anthony Waterer).

In the middle of summer, the colors of the allaria will be added by numerous semi-umbrellas of pinkish, purple and crimson flowers of blooming spirea. At the same time, the presence of this shrub in the flower garden guarantees that the allaria will always be interesting and attractive, because the foliage of Japanese spirits has the ability to change color during the season.

In April, when many onions have not yet bloomed, this is the brightest shrub in the garden with dazzlingly bright young leaves, and in the fall, after the alliums have finished flowering, the crimson and orangey autumn color of spire takes over the baton.

A similar color scheme and a spherical bush shape have undersized tunberg barberry, while golden foliage can be found in varieties such as Tiny Gold, Bonanza Gold and Golden Divine, in varieties Admiration or Atropurpurea Nana - bright red or purple colors, and a tiny variety The boxwood-like Kobold will create a dense, dense green cushion at the base of the bows.

Low-growing varieties of weigela, such as the popular Minor Black cultivar with wide dark purple leaves, can be no less successful partner for allium. If over time the weigela bushes grow too large, their size can also be successfully controlled by cutting.

But with the help of scissors, you can independently give the dwarf chubushnik Gnome a spherical shape, although this type of chubushnik will not bloom. Well, and of course, it is difficult not to invite representatives of a large group of dwarf conifers to the allyarium.

A wonderful evergreen pedestal for blooming alliums will be the emerald "nests" of the dwarf Nidiformis spruce or the bluish Waldbrunn herringbone. And there is nothing to say about thujas, because their spherical shape is unconditionally combined with the fluffy heads of allium. Low spherical varieties of tui, which are easy to find in nurseries, are, first of all: Danica, Hoseri, Tiny Tim - they have green needles. Globosa Aurea, Golden Tuffet - yellow coniferous representatives of the group.

Since flowering onions mainly set a vertical in the flower garden, the role of the horizontal is easily taken on by creeping forms of junipers, such as Wiltonii, Green Carpet, Golden Carpet, which will create bright spectacular spots of bluish, blue and yellow flowers in the flower garden.

Slime onion, or drooping onion (Allium nutans) on a flower garden with spirea
Slime onion, or drooping onion (Allium nutans) on a flower garden with spirea

Perennial plants in allaria

Perennial plants will not be superfluous in the allaria. The best companions for onions will be ground covers, which will help close the voids between loose onion plantings, but they will not compete with Allium for the main role in the flower garden. Therefore, perennials adjacent to onions must either maintain the purple-purple color scheme of the allaria, or have white, yellow or orange inflorescences, and not be too tall.

An equally important criterion that must be taken into account when choosing neighbors for onions is also the relative drought resistance of plants, because alliums will react negatively to excessive watering. Catnip, hyssop, sage, lavender, veronica, whorled coreopsis and others fully meet these requirements.

Recently, it has become fashionable to use decorative cereals when drawing up an allaria. And this approach is quite justified, since the linear leaves of cereals well mask the dying foliage of onions, similar to it in shape, and the original panicles will bring the quiet charm of natural plantings to the flower garden.

Recommended: