Allium 2012

[wmel]

Wietse how are your seedlings after that cold spell?Were the straw and the snow insulating them enough to keep them alive?

Snow and frost are gone now, but they left a lot of damage in the Allium.
Under the straw we do not have most damage, but still allium's as Silver Spring, and ampeloprasum type's have a lot of damage.
The 1e year seedling as I posted photo's in the begin of this topic have only a little frost damage.
I think the photo's  I post tell it all.......... We will wait and see.......

Silverspring is not hardy with me. All stocks baught by me turned virus infected, but I have seedlings of it in greenhouse. Hope they will be healthy.
Janis

In my first post this year I posted a photo of SilverSpring seed, I have tried to protect if from the frost with a lot of straw, but still I lost about 80% of it.......  Most bulbs survived and are growing well now.

After 6 years of sowing about 5-8 seeds every year, at last I have about 6 seedlings of allium REGELII !! SEE PHOTO,  first time they germinate !!

First allium starts to flower now:  allium paradoxum var normale and allium zebdanense.

also some other photos from today...

[Paul T]

You certainly are growing on a big scale,aren't you!! 

I had Allium paradoxum var normale sent to me last year and didn't know what to expect.  I don't grow many Allium, although I am starting to pick up a few more here and there..... I rather love it.... such a different proportion to the traditional Allium.  Very different!! (but in a good way!  )

[TheOnionMan]

Allium zebdanense
http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5766.msg151469#msg151469

Allium paradoxum var. normale:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5766.msg148517#msg148517

Allium paradoxum var. normale described:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5766.msg145381#msg145381

[Paul T]

Interesting, Mark.  Your pics show var normale flowering above the foliage, yet mine flowered like wmel's..... flowers almost lost amongst the foliage.  Does that mean in future years the flower may sit up high?  Mine were lucky to flower maybe 15cm tall, with the leaves much larger and more prominent than the flower.

[wmel]

Interesting, Mark.  Your pics show var normale flowering above the foliage, yet mine flowered like wmel's..... flowers almost lost amongst the foliage.  Does that mean in future years the flower may sit up high?  Mine were lucky to flower maybe 15cm tall, with the leaves much larger and more prominent than the flower.

last year they were much longer, see photo
I think in the next weeks they will grow longer

[gote]

Nice paradoxum. I am thinking of moving mine. Do you have any views about how sunny they should be placed.
Göte

[wmel]

Nice paradoxum. I am thinking of moving mine. Do you have any views about how sunny they should be placed.
Göte

They grow very wel in full sun with me, but with some shade they flower much longer....
It's one of the first to harvest (mine go out as soon as the leaves are died somewere in the end of may)
Best is to keep warm and dry al summer and re-plant in oktober.

[Stephenb]

Could someone please identify this for me. I suspect it's one of the commercially sold bulb Alliums - distinctive red tips to the leaves.

[wmel]

Could someone please identify this for me. I suspect it's one of the commercially sold bulb Alliums - distinctive red tips to the leaves.

I will look in my "garden" tomorrow morning at sunrise, becauce it can be a lot of different alliums........

[wmel]

Could someone please identify this for me. I suspect it's one of the commercially sold bulb Alliums - distinctive red tips to the leaves.

Most likely it is Aflatunense (Hollandicum)  or "Purple Sensation" But we will see wen they flower.......

[Stephenb]

Thanks - strange, I don't have any note of planting that in this place, but somewhere else. Looks like I've mixed things up!

[wmel]

The weather is very nice here, so al bulbs grow fast.
First tulips start flowering, and alliums grow well to
Some photos from today. As you can see allium paradoxum now is much higher then a week ago

[TheOnionMan]

Hi Weitse, impressive as always.  If I may ask, how to do go about handling the beds of 2-year seedlings as we see in your photo "allium 2-year seed 3-4-2012 1.JPG"?  With so many seedlings (I imagine thousands in each block), do these get dug up and separated so that the bulbs have room to develop?  If so, must be a tremendous amount of work, how is it done?

Now that A. paradaoxum var. normale has developed and the flowers are above the foliage, it shows well just how lovely this species is.   

[wmel]

Hi Weitse, impressive as always.  If I may ask, how to do go about handling the beds of 2-year seedlings as we see in your photo "allium 2-year seed 3-4-2012 1.JPG"?  With so many seedlings (I imagine thousands in each block), do these get dug up and separated so that the bulbs have room to develop?  If so, must be a tremendous amount of work, how is it done?

It is a lot of work indeed, We let the seed/bulbs in the ground for 2 years on the same spot, because after 1 year grow they are just to smal for harvesting and for surviving a dry storage al summer.
The second year we dig out al bulbs with al surrounding soil and wash them out by hand, some bulbs grow only 1 or 2 centimeter deep so these are easy to find (like karataviense type's) but others (like schubertii or auctum) grow sometimes to a depth of 20 centimeters so these we have to wash a lot of soil to get a little bulbs.
I post 2 old photos in wich you can see a box of harvested bulbs with soil, and how they look after washing, I make some more photos this year.

Last autumn I had some bulbs left over of the wild allium paradoxum, and just throw them into the bush in my garden... see photo

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks Weitse for explaining, that's quite an operation, and lots of work.  The box full of A. tschimganicum bulbs look like little coctail onions   When you plant them out, do you just "broadcast" the little bulblets in a planting bed, or use some sort of planting machine?  I can't imagine that you would actually go to the trouble of planting the bulbs right-side-up, the little bulbs will probably "right" themselves as they increase in size.

By comparison, it makes my my simple seed sowing quite easy and manageable, particularly when I do a little bit of seed "sowing-in-place".

Here are some seed flats full of germinating Allium, thanks so much Wietse!
Allium tuncelianum and macranthum:





Allium huber-morathii:




Allium aff. elburzense from Kurt Vickery seed, sown directly in the garden in 2 locations, here's one location with 12 second-year seedlings.




Allium species coll.Turkey, from NARGS 2008-09 seed, direct sown in 2010. these are second-year seedlings.




Allium fedtschenkoanum, coll. Kazakhstan.  I received about 25 Allium collections from Kazakhstan, all but 3 have germinated.