Summer Allium

This is a very cheerful flower. It is about the size of a small plum, and plum colored, held aloft on a skinny stalk, standing about 30-36” tall. It bobs up and down in the wind. The flower heads develop in June, start out green and then turn purple from the top down. It is (nearly) fully purple by about July 4th.

The leaves are very skinny, grasslike stalks that rather quickly turn into a dried out mess around the base. I usually pull out/pick up the leaves around Memorial Day, and let any tall stalks that are going to turn into flowers stay. This flower does better in full sun. The more shade, the more likely it is to fall over. I’ve started trying to remove this from some of my shady areas. After the flowers are done blooming, I usually just cut the stalks and any remaining leaves to the ground.

I have quite a few mixed in with the Iris along my garage. In the above pic you can see some that are going horizontal.

I got this plant (bulb) years ago at a plant rummage sale. When a flower bloomed, my former neighbor told me they were called “common nodding onion”. Since then, I have poked around online a bit, and am fairly sure that what I have is Allium sphaerocephalon ‘Drumstick’.

The above pic is in the back against the north wall. The grassy foliage at the base of the Alliums is mostly its foliage with a little bit of some Siberian Iris foliage mixed in.

Sometimes I’ll cut a few for a vase. They last a long time as a cut flower.

The above pic gives you a size reference. The foliage in the background is NOT the Allium foliage - it is one of my grasses.

This bulb spreads quite aggressively. Each small bulb either splits or creates pips (I don’t know exactly) in the ground – seemingly dozens per stalk. The pips are about as big as a dried split pea. A "full" bulb is 10-12mm; about the size of a marble or slightly bigger. When splitting other plants and moving them around, it is easy to move a few small pips with the soil. Next thing you know, cheerful nodding onions everywhere!