What are they called

I know, I am tempted to sow some just for their flowers.

 

Thanks everyone.
I'll get onto the seeds asap.
I thought i would have to wait until the warmer weather.
I'll pop them into the cold frame.

 

Claire - I don't know how long they take to flower. I am dying to find out. In the first summer my A christophii seeds had grown into bulbs that were little bigger that the seeds themselves. So my gut feeling is that they won't flower in the second year, which is why they cost such a lot to buy.

I have just had a Google and cannot find any reference to time from seed to flowering. Except for this T&M site http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/product/7739/1.html where it says after the first year put in a nursery bed and grow on for 3 to 4 years before planting in the required position. It sounds like a long job. Thats why I said stick them in a deep pot and forget about them for 2 or 3 years. Whilst you may not get fast results if you have the space keeping a pot for three years is no hastle.

I have just had a look at mine - all of which are outside. The ones sowed over a year ago are already showing small leaves again. And the seeds I sowed about Christmas time are now germinating. One thought - they come from Turkey and although even the seedlings seem to be perfectly hardy, I suspect they like good drainage - so I would add some sharp sand to the compost. Don't handle them or pot them up until after the leaves have died and the bulb goes dormant.

 

As always ( I have a phobia about damp and cold and fungal damage) I have potted them in a 50:50 all purpose compost and vermiculite mix. I had a funny feeling that like garlic they won`t tolerate wet and cold together-although I have never grown garlic for food- I like the colour of their stalks when they start to shoot up and have always liked them against red cornus.

The low light levels and the cold damp clings up here, so that` s the price I must pay for being bang on the side of the pennines and not getting bad frosts.

But like Lyn, I do fancy some of those beautiful big alliums so like you I am prepared to wait-mainly because I am a tight fisted bu**er but that`s by the by. Nothing showing on mine yet and I sowed mine just before Christmas.


I hope they flower next year for me, but now I come to think about it, if the bulbs are so small they will need that second year to fatten up and then flower the year after.

 

Being tight fisted is a marvellous incentive. Long may it last.

At the end of last year I bought three Allium "Mount Everest" bulbs at £2 each. I have seen "Mount Everest" in the local RHS Harlow Carr gardens. It is huge and magnificent, 5 feet tall with big white heads. I intended collecting the seed to grow more, but wasn't sure if it was an infertile hybrid. However I saw the same seeds for sale in Chiltern's catalogue so I bought some seed as well and have just sown them. Going by the size of the bulbs, it could be an even longer wait. :D

Another nice one I bought last year was Allium nigrum (smaller version of Mt Everest) as bulbs. The flowers, last year, seemed to last for longer than other Alliums. It was on a three for two offer at Christmas. The two packets I paid for were part of my sister's Christmas present, and the freeby was my Christmas present :D. I owned up to her, but she said she would have done the same. :D

 

The nigrum I too have seen and liked-very good taste there Peter.


I would love to see some pics when they flower.

 

Aargh, I wanted to say, there is something aboutthe length of seed-flower waitof Allium chrisfoffii (spelling?) in C. Lloyds books, probably the Well Tempered garden. I was already half way out of the chair to look it up then I remembered my books are already packed away and stored at a friend's place. If someone has the book at hand, give a look, I really think there was something about it.

 

Thanks Claire - great minds think alike :D

Bingo - Ivory. :thumb: You have got it. "Well Tempered garden" page 101 "Alliums are famous seeders, and this is an easy way to raise stock of new kinds; most can be bought to flowering size in a couple of years".

I wait with eager anticipation!

 

I`ll have a look-don`t have the excuse of having packed them away though. It`ll be somewhere, been on The Lord of the Rings for the last two weeks.

 

Woah, for all my AADD there are some things I can actually remember! To be honest I think the good Mr Lloyd was giving so much care, attentions and magic fairy powder to his seedlings that his plants grew twice as fast as ours. At least my seedlings never seemed to grow as fast as he said in his books despite all my "mamma-ing" them (the word is one of my Hubby's contribution to the english language)

 

Ivory, I think you are right. For normal people I think the time is likely to be at least Lloyd + 50%.

Which raises the next question of how to nurse young bulbs. I have never done anything except to leave them in a pot and give a weekly (or when I remember) feed along with my other pot plants. But I was talking to a friend who used to grow gladiolii and he said that he used cow manure, leaf mould and all sorts of other things. Having said that, this was many years ago and I suspect that this is what he could lay his hands on rather than the result of pure science.

 

O.K people in the no , more help needed please LOL
I have had some of the Allium bulbs arrive they are Albopilosum Christophii & Purple sensation .
Anyway what I need to no is can I plant them now ,it's frost free here at the moment and cold & damp, or should I wait until next month?
Some have tiny sprouts on them.

 

Plant them, if it`s any consolation or hope-my crocuses have started flowering, my iris have and may daffs have, I think it`ll be just fine.

 

Plant them in a brown cardboard box to get them going, in a month you plant them out box and all! :-)

 

They are perfectly hardy. I would agree with Ivory, put them in some sort of a pot to let them grow. With nothing much up in the garden now, you might not know exactly where you wanted to plant them. Its much easier to place things when everything has grown up a bit.

This site give some hints http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plantprofile_allium.shtml about Alliums. They like full sun and well drained soil - so add some sharp sand to the compost.