Allium Pulchellum

[Gene]

I just received a new plant from Sunshine Farm in West Virginia, USA.  I live in Texas, USA.  It is an heirloom plant, circa 1810, called Allium Pulchellum, AKA 'ornamental onion' or 'keeled garlic'.  It is an
RHS "Award of merit" plant & I should be able to propagate it easily.  It is a bulb & is said to seed freely & rapidly form clumps.  How do I research the RHS website?  Is it possible to send plant material to George from the USA?  If not, it is available at http://www.broadleighbulbs.co.uk/  Does anyone have experiance with this one? Thanks, Gene

[ideasguy]

Alliums are a very popular plant in the UK, Gene. I bought a few varieties last year, and of the varieties I bought, the one I liked best was Allium cristophii. Lovely big heads - great in flower, and when the tiny flowers died, the seeds heads had the same structure and were equally spectacular.

No doubt our members have your variety growing.

Paragraph from Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden
Chapter: Tidying up for winter
Most of ther alliums have been tidied away long ago, but one of the latest to flower,
Allium carinatum subsp. pulchellum, I find seeded in and around cushions and mats of helianthemum,
Veronica cinerea and Eriophyllum lanatum.
Self-sown, they created an almost meadow-like effect, delightful in flower, both pink and white forms,
but their tumbled stems are distracting now. Once they have been cleared away, the area left,
of gravel mulch, will look as fresh as a newly shaved chin. 

I like the following links for checking out plants for growing in UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/index.shtml
They dont list your variety of Allium.

For checking out Plant names, this is THE best resource:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder.asp
Allium pulchellum brings up this page:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder2.asp?crit=allium%20and%20pulchellum&Genus=Allium
and from this we find that:
Allium carinatum subsp. pulchellum 
is Keeled garlic

As for sending plants from US, I dont know the regulations. Will do some research.

Over to our members. Do you grow this plant, or similar?

[Palustris]

Allium carinatum pulchellum is dead easy, seeds itself all over the garden if you do not dead head it. There is a white form of it too, just as easy from offsets or seed. It does come true from seed.
Only book on Alliums is by Dylis Davies and sadly is now rather out of date. There are lots of 'new' ones coming in from Eastern Europe.
For a real eye opening on Alliums check this site out!
http://www.plantbuzz.com/allium/Allium.htm

[JeanV]

I love alliums but in wet Bolton I got best results by growing them in pots and then positioning the pots inside shrubs so the tall flowers of the alliums were supported by the shrub abd the flowers nodded happilly, Places like Powys Castle di the same thing in their herbaceos borders. I found in pots they grew year after year, in the ground I tended to lose them I looked at the picture of this one and I think this was one I lost <g>