Brian Sullivan is the Vice President for Landscape, Gardens and Outdoor Collections. He oversees the care, presentation, and development of the outdoor gardens and landscape management of the Garden’s 250 outdoor acres.
Allium giganteum
When choosing a new plant to add to a garden, some people choose plants for beauty. Others choose plants with a purpose, for example a shade tree or an upright evergreen for structure in the garden. Well, isn’t it nice to find a plant that fills more than one need?
One such plant is the ornamental allium. If that name sounds familiar, it should. There are many species and cultivars of the genus Allium, which include the well-known chives, onions, and garlic.
The flower appears to be a single, spherical flower borne on single upright stems. However, the globes are actually made up of many small, star-shaped flowers radiating out from the center. Alliums come in many sizes. The flower heads range from tiny to quite large, and the density of the flowers can be quite full, creating a dense flower head; or very open, making for an airy flower head. The stems also range from a short 12” to an astounding 36”. Colors can range from dark purple to the light pink, with some white cultivars. The different species and cultivars can be massed in large numbers or mixed all together for varying effects in the garden.
I often have visitors tell me that they love perennials, but their big challenge as gardeners is finding combinations that make it easy to synchronize bloom times. This is a real challenge particularly when the desire to create appealing plant partners meets a wish to provide multi-seasonal interest in the garden.
Annuals are an easy way to ensure season-long color, but they often lack the textures, stature, and architectural interest that perennials supply. In my walks around the Garden this year I have found two “garden moments” worth sharing—one serendipitous, the other planned. They are instructive examples in creating satisfying designs with limited plant palettes in your garden.
A few years ago, on a low stone wall in the Home Gardening Center, I planted a climbing hydrangea (Schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Moonlight’). The climbing hydrangea is a woody vine that has blue-green, heart-shaped leaves and creamy white lace-cap flowers. It has stretched itself happily over the stone wall and filled in nicely.
Since the vine wants to crawl on the stone wall we needed to fill the space below, by its feet, and along the edge of the border. Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) seemed like a logical choice. This perennial only grows 12-18” tall and forms a nice clump, with large, scalloped, light-green to blue-green foliage. Furthermore, lady’s mantle flowers alongside the climbing hydrangea in June, producing clusters of showy chartreuse flowers.
Skip your morning affair with the everything bagel and get to the root of summer’s freshest garlic and onions! As Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, Annie Novak’s got a direct line to the most basic of foodie cravings–a knack for not only raising all things allium, but putting them through their paces in the kitchen. So if you happen to catch a whiff of this pungent pair as you wander the NYBG between now and the end of the month, simply “follow your nose” to our Sweet and Stinky events.
That’s just what we were doing when we found Annie hard at work in the Family Garden yesterday, tending to the herbs and alliums that star in this flavorful summertime activity. But she can explain the fun of Sweet and Stinky far better than I can, as you’ll see below. Just think of it as a double whammy: you’ll have something to engage your kids while they’re out of school, and they’ll be trying new things in our one-acre vegetable garden to boot.
