Allium

Loved by pollinators, really high impact, absolutely beautiful in a cottage garden setting.

And for me, Alliums will be my personal favorite.

I love the likes of snowdrops and crocuses because they come so early and they just give you that little lift at that stage.

But I think in terms of impact, I think it's really, really hard to beat alliums that are planted quite densely through flower beds.

mean, like the seed that I say from the allium family is like generally a discard after a year because the germination rate goes down so quickly.

Yes.

The whole Allium family, although it can be quite tricky to maintain distinct varieties, it cross-pollinates quite easily.

The abundance of seed from a few plants is massive and why take the risk with seed that isn't going to germinate when potentially your saved seed is going to do much better? Well,

I've already decided doing this conversation because I've never saved spring onion seed before.

Like it is...

And I guess to varying levels of success, we had an Allium massacre earlier this season.

And at one point we had a moose go through the electric fence.

But to varying levels of success, you have a sense of control in that space.

I don't know if they'll know how to deal with it, but that's not my problem.

I was going to list one last flower not on here, and that is the Allium millennium,

which I have tons

of it.

They are just, you know, they peak bloomed about two weeks ago, but they'll just kind of go, and I just let them go, and They sort of turn a silvery color, and I just let them go, and then I'll deadhead them in the fall.

I usually let, so with mine, I would let them do their first flush of bloom, and then I would deadhead them, and they'd do another smaller flush of bloom.

See, I don't get a second flush of bloom on Allium.

I think it's

Fantastic for people who are undergoing hormone-driven breast cancer or ovarian cancer because these compounds can down-regulate the activity of estrogen in the body.

Looking to bringing in things from the Allium family, they're like garlic, onions, leeks, really supportive to our immune system, which is really important in the cancer setting for our immune system to identify these abnormal cells and kill them.

Um, you know, green leafy veggies, just powerhouses of nutrients.

So you want to bring in all these different colors, and I often describe it to my clients, if your car broke down in the morning and you brought it to the mechanic, he's not gonna fix that car with one tool.