The sheer height, plus the poofy looking ball on the end, means that you really can’t do this plant justice with a single photo. The one I had last year did some really weird loops with its long stalk before heading straight up. The ball smells like an onion and is a bit smaller than a baseball this time.
Cool photos, Far. I believe that IVG had one of these up on his site recently.
ReplyDeleteHi Boran. Yup, he did have one very recently in fact. His is prettier. Mine is actually at its peak color; when it opens up it turns some shade of pale.
ReplyDeleteHey FAR,
ReplyDeleteI'd really like to find out what variety of allium this really is ... I'm betting it's either a wild one or something that has reverted to a wilder form over the years. Given its mysterious appearance at your place, I'm betting on the latter. With a bloom only the size of a baseball, but with that height, it makes me think it may be one of the giant varieties gone wild. (They often are that tall but the balls are usually more like 10-12")
The ones we have only reach about 3 ft tall, with flowers the size of baseballs. The fact yours is a paler color also makes me think you have some kind of backwoods de-volution, (p)revert kind of allium. VERY coool though, and I was just thinking the other day I should ask you if it had reappeared this year! Voilà!
I hope you let it go to seed and spread them around and maybe in a few years you can have a Hugh Jass colony of them going at the Manor!
Hi FAR,
ReplyDeleteVery cool plant. Can't say I've ever seen one around here.
Hey guys!
ReplyDeleteIVG, this is actually a second one. I dug up & transplanted the "one" from last year over the winter, which turned out to have eleven bulbs all crowded together! They're separated & growing in a bed now, except for one that withered up last week; I dug that one up & it was a nice small onion, with a small bulb sprouting next to it. I brought the withered one inside for food & re-set the little bulb. None of those have shot that long stalk yet; I figure that will come next year.
I'm guessing it's wild… we have all sorts of wild onions & chives growing everywhere around the manor. Both of them came up outside a flower bed, where they got weed-eaten every year until I got curious as to what was coming back & let them do their thing. If it's a domestic runaway, maybe its ancestors were in the flower bed & the previous owners took them with when they left.
FM, it's a variety of onion… just a little more exuberant than most about seeding itself. If onions grow wild around your place, these would probably grow too.
LOL FAR, that is wild ... ;-)
ReplyDeleteGreat way to showcase it, w/ the storyboard/mosaic/etc.
Thanks, Olivia. Your mosaics gave me the idea for this & the previous lily shot!
ReplyDelete