Planting Allium bulbs

Our display of alliums from this year, which hopefully will be added to

At the same time as planting my Sphaerocephalon bulbs, which by the way is the longest word that I know how to spell, I also planted all my other Allium bulbs.  Unfortunately my other bulbs were considerably larger, and therefore far harder work than the Sphaerocephalon tiddlers were.  Two of the paper bags of bulbs had been written on so I knew what they were, but I only rediscovered what the third ones were by revisiting this post, Red mohicans it turns out, I can't wait!  The others are 'White Giant' and 'Rosenbachianum'.

White Giant bulbs, you can tell, they are giant

Red Mohicans bulbs, quite possibly the best allium if only for the name

Planting Alliums is, as far as Im aware, hardly rocket science.  The stumbling block was the same as for the Sphaerocephalon; sand.  I kept reading that they want well drained soil, so to give them the best chance of being the most amazing display they could be I felt I should try and give them a little drainage.  The mother did not bother herself with such things when she planted her allium bulbs a couple of years ago and they have been great every year, so maybe its not as important as people make out.  But still if Im going to make all the effort of excavating a hole, Im going to try and do it right.
In one of my paper bags was a slip of paper giving instructions on how to plant the bulbs, I can't remember exactly what It said but basically I believe the rule is the hole wants to be two and a half times the size of the bulb- great for Sphaerocephalons- less so for White Giants.  How I cursed those great big bulbs after I had dug a few holes.  I trowelled the soil that came out of the holes into a bucket of sand, mixed the two up and put some underneath the bulbs and then filled the holes up with it too.  I imagine it worked out at one part sand to two parts soil.  Hopefully thats what they wanted and I will have a fabulous display.

No not evidence of a mole, Iv been digging holes

It annoys me faintly when I read how to plant Alliums because all the gardeners in the know say 'oh I plant them in drifts, don't plant them in two and threes it will look dotty', says somebody with probably acres of garden and no limitations.  Some of us aren't so lucky.  There is not space to be filled, space has to be found.  'Drifts' have to fit themselves round the mother's established bushes, and by round I mean I hacked a great chunk off the bottom of two bushes to reveal a patch of soil to wedge my Alliums into.  I also found another patch, so I will get two 'drifts', or 'clumps' as they are in my book.

I unfortunately can't remember what variety the mother's alliums are but they made a good display

Wet bee, poor thing