If you're looking for more alliums to plant: Garlic Chives/Chinese Chives are September ephemeral blooms (pollinators go crazy in my garden when they do), are relatively short if you want shorter beds in certain areas, plus taste AMAZING. Chives and fried egg is one of my favourite dishes. Also, some patches of bee balms and partridge peas(both native to Eastern NA!) attract an insane amount of pollinators, and thrive in a meadow setting if you're interested in that.
Trying to get as much of that gardening in for the next few weeks before the snow! Because then we'll be in 3 months of planning (not planting) under the snow. :/
@@FlockFingerLakes I assume you design and plot the gardens yourself? That would make an interesting video. I'd love to see the process of putting a design to paper. I'm terrible a scaling.
Egyptian walking onions are really funky looking. Also convenient to pick them off the top to either plant somewhere else, or use them to cook (really nice flavor).
Hi, this video was very detailed in terms of breaking down Allium growth rates and different species. In addition, showing videos from different temporal/seasons is very pleasant to watch how things progress and change! Though, I would love to see more about the land /plots you do your plantings. Maybe you can position them in maps for context? Such as places near forests, agriculture land, urban areas (cities) etc. I just think this would help the viewers to see the larger impact of planting pollinator beneficial plants!
You inspired me to plant my own this year! I already added tommy crocus, tulip sylvestris and grape hyacinth to my lawn for spring! I also have white alliums and red anemone coronaria to look forward to in summer! It's still not done though as I'm also planning to add Scilla autumnalis for autumn color when the bulbs show up in the mail! I can't wait!
Love Little Bluestem, a common native grass in our area. Have been thinking of planting alliums, though it would be next year, so delighted to see what you have planned.
My musical Mother enjoyed them a lot, in her well- orchestrated, performing garden. Looking back, I imagine that she was quite proud of them, standing just as tall, as these flowers. It seems as if she really had 'eyes for them,' while I looked that way towards them and saw so many small varied, delicate details instead, in that lovely, car-stopping 'painting.' I was a child and actually didn't know which flowers she meant, because the whole amazing Spring catalog was out there. Her garden was sheltered on all sides. It was a little cozy paradise. How will these 'giants' perform, in a meadow, if the occasional windy, torrential, Summer storms choose to return? I would love to give them a chance here. The on-going drought is discouraging, but because of that flower form, would the stalk be strong enough to withstand a storm, without being supported by many closely-planted cousins? Your meadow will be a field of quiet fireworks and photographers might just outnumber the pollinators. 🐝
We will find out how they perform. One thing that will work well down here is that it's well-draining on account of all the stones that the previous nursery had brought it. So they won't get water-logged, which they would hate and rot before they even emerge. Meadow plants in general are tolerant of drought. And these should be champs with droughty-conditions too. But most of the meadow is quite tall-not short-so I don't think their height will be a problem, though time will tell. We do get some strong winds occasionally, but nothing yet that has been too overbearing-especially from May-August, which is generally the nicest weather of the year here. We really benefit from having a mountain that slowly rises behind us, so when the wind or cold air comes, it hits the lowest point in the area, (which is not us)...So we benefit from that topography.
It is very inspiring,informative, and interesting ..to see all your hard work come to life .Can't wait till spring to see everything come together. Appreciate yah
Have you thought about bringing in woodchips and compost to help address some of the rockiness? Do you treat your gardens with compost tea? Love your results. Thank you for sharing. Very imformative.
In my vegetable garden I planted Chinese onion, onion and garlic chives to attract pollinators. In my flower beds I planted Glode Master, Drumstick and Ambassador Allium to war off the “bad” insects from attacking my roses. I love the dark purple Allium growing next to my yellow or red plants, such a nice contrast. I also love my Holy Smoke big bluestem, a native grass, grows 5 - 6 feet tall, blue/purple/red stems, very hardy.
This was so much fun. We have an allium bed wit several different kinds. One of my favorites is the Egyptian or ‘walking’ onion. Really fun and quite tasty.
Allium ‘’Purple Sensation’ and ‘Allium Christophii’ growing in our flower bed - finger lakes region. They spread nicely and never take over the entire garden; definitely free spirits.
enjoyed this one, we planted a bunch of alliums last year. most bloomed right away and then went dormant. some already have new growth starting here in november. i still need to get some globemasters and will also look for summer drummer. knock on wood, so far the deer have left them alone, famous last words, i said that about the rhododendrons last year and then they gobbled them all up.
Those drumstick allium are super cool, they look like a big plantain flower almost. A couple alium you didn't mention would be garlic (alium sativum) which I assume you probably have planted already but if not they are pretty on their own and Tree onions (Allium × proliferum) which are strange small ones that would possibly be well-suited to the edges of your paths, gardens, etc. and they seem to do pretty well under trees as well. Thanks for the cool deep dive!
This gave me some ideas including commenters. I have native spotted horse mint and it is tuff. Pollinators love it, but it is aggressive and deep rooted. I wonder if the gophers would eat bulbs? I try to keep gophers under control, but I see they had many holes in an area of wildflower meadow I started 2 years ago. I have a few large bags of seed I’m planting today and only have a small spot prepared, but seeing you throw seed on less than perfectly prepared soil I think I will try that also. Z5a. I have a ton of garlic chives and more coneflower that I could add.
I add more bulbs every year, and alliums are some of my favorite. The drumstick alliums are pretty tall and the bees and other pollinators adore them. Love their unique color and lager bloom time as well. I have a bunch of karataviense to plant this week. I’ve planted ‘hair’ in a small, contained area, and the following year I was seeing something similar all along the edge of our field, which is not close to where I planted it. I’m wondering if the seeds were spread somehow or if this form is a common occurrence and the wild onion/garlic grass had some sort of mutation…🤷♀️ Summer Drummer is supposed to get very tall, and christophii and schubertii are short, but so fun.
I’m having a serious problem with critters digging up my bulbs, have you found this to be a problem and if so what’s the estimated loss of bulbs you think you’ve uncovered in the land? I know you’ve planted so many it probably won’t matter but I was just curious. Thank you for all you do I’ve been following you for a while and I absolutely love your enthusiasm and knowledge of plants. And Sanders awesome as well.🌸❤️
I THINK YOU HAVE CAUGHT THE BULB BUG. I HAVE JUST TREATED MYSELF TO SOME VERY SPECIAL FRITILLARIA, TWIN TOWERS, PURPLE DYNAMITE, PERSICA XXL, MINARET, MAGIC BELLS AND IVORY TOWERS. BLACK FRIDAY DEAL COULD NOT RESIST
Your opinion on, do the grasses choke out the alliums over time? When you are broadcasting seeds do you just let nature push them into the ground or deer and other critters walking and pushing them into the ground? I am so anxious to see the progress of your dream. Keep up the good work and aspiring others to help 'Mother Nature'.
Good question. I think we'll have to wait and see, but my guess is no. What I'm basing that on is the fact that allium (think onions, garlic) have a tendency to spread various different ways. I can go back to the home where I grew up -30 years ago - and still find garlic (and asparagus) growing up in the grass. You know when you mow because you can smell it! They are quite persistent and don't need coddling to thrive. Now whether some of these ornamental alliums are able to persist, that will be interesting to see!
We are trying to transform our 73 acres into prairie etc with pollinators grasses etc. a monumental feat. How can you economically afford alliums ? And how do you compete with the bluestem etc when trying to plant other native seeds?
I have heavy clay and if all the allium bulbs i have planted, only one comes up every year. Very disappointing. I've been planting the non-bulb alliums like Millennium and Serendipity and these have returned for me
Not the alliums. They love tulips though. Luckily there's a 15-acre deer exclusion fence around this area, so we don't get deer pressure. We had one deer break in and fawn this spring/summer, but we fixed that break in and will try to be vigilant throughout the year.
This area was once an old container nursery, so they brought in 100,000 tons of gravel and stone and did a bunch of tile drainage so the area would drain well. They used the 3 ponds in the (now) meadow area for rainwater collection and irrigation. We cleaned it out last year ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qhSM0dOIA1w.html so we could do more seeding and planting.
Ya lost me when you said, "none of these are native". All those videos on the need to restore the working ecosystem and to worry about non-native species.... and yet "pretty" always wins in the end. The folks that brought in honeysuckle and wysteria and nandina all agreed that they looked pretty.
You're missing out: there's great peer-reviewed scientific literature out there around many of our herbs if one cares to look-(just most often not coming out of Western universities for obvious reasons). . . not to mention thousands of years old texts based on a knowledge we can only hope to grasp now that we've divorced ourselves from it.
I'm with you on the herbalism Summer. Knowledge based on thousands of years vs. the closed eyes of a few decades, for me, there's no contest. Embrace all knowledge.
Ahhhh, the bulbs... There seems to be no end to my bulb addiction. I just can't get enough! Every year I try new bulbs, new categories of bulbs, which, new to me are the seasons of ALL the bulbs! And today I will be planting many of the ones you mentioned in the vid. While I don't have a "meadow" of my own, come this next Summer, I'll be enjoying the surprises they bring me in my little corner of the world. Actually, it's probably best that I don't have my own meadow!! I would be wearing myself out trying to plant it with so many bulbs!!
