Rosenbachianum, white giant and allium flowers

A shot into the centre of a rosenbachianum, very pretty, and shows the airy nature of the flower stalks

In my last post of alliums I talked about the growing.  This time im going to actually cover the big flowery balls of joy themselves.  As I said in my last post, the alliums are coming in waves so the last two varieties are not out yet.  The first three have virtually been and gone, shame.

Rosenbachianum is less of a solid ball and more of a cluster, but equally at pretty

Up close and personal the little flowers are super cute

The first one out was purple Rosenbachianum.  The main difference between this variety and the purple ones I had previously is the density of the flowers.  The individual flower stalks that make up the ball of flower are really long and radiate out from a central point.  This makes the flower appear much less dense, which is nice, but they are beginning to look slightly raggedy now they are fading. As the flowers do start to fade they are taking on a slightly claret tone to the purple, which is lovely.  The separated spokes makes this more delicate and airy than the more dense balls of other varieties, which I suppose is good in terms of variety although I think I prefer the dense balls slightly more myself.

I think this shows the true solid thickness of the massive stem of white giant.  More of
a tree than an allium, with a handy bee attached

As usual the bees love a good allium

The second variety to make an appearance was white giant.  With this one the clue is in the name.  They are white, they are giant.  The balls themselves are bigger and the stems are so thick, and not to mention tall!  A solid pair of scissors will be needed to hack those stems down when they are finished.  These are of the dense ball type, but pure driven white in colour, which is a nice change as everything else out allium-wise was purple.  These show up the bees particularly nicely, I know that seems an odd thing to consider, but their little yellow and black stripey jackets contrast against the white a treat.

I used to think alliums should be purple but actually the white contrasts really well, and actually shows up the bees more.  The flowers are very evenly spread across the ball

Got to love a cheeky bug snuggled in amongst the flowers.  This shows the way the unknown original variety opens, in a very solid way

Lastly but not least, we have my originals.  These have definitely multiplied as I now have about five flower heads when I believe only three original bulbs were purchased.  This is all good as far as I am concerned, the more flowery balls the better in my eyes!  I used to think I had bought the most boring type of allium as it is standard purple, however having bought a few more varieties I can now fully appreciate their charms.  They are very solid, and very purple.  Rather than the airy fairy quality of the rosenbachianum, these are tightly packed, and its this density that allows you to appreciate the subtle differences in colour between each individual flower.  Plus, these are the bees favourite, don't ask me why!  These also open very differently to the rosenbachianum.  All the unopened green buds are exposed and then each one individually pops out until the whole ball fills out, so its interesting to watch.

Unlike the rosenbachianum this one has very close together flowers and comes out in a progressive way, making most definitely a ball

A view across some of the alliums, with the veg patch behind.
I haven't the room to spread it out

With these three varieties almost over I now look forward to hopefully seeing a red mohican or two, and some sphaerocephalon, am so excited about those!  What this does reveal though is that when you go to a garden show and all the alliums are out together its very misleading as when grown in the garden they all come out at different times!