Award-winning allium checks all boxes on growers’ wish lists
Don’t ask a group of gardeners how to grow great tomatoes or what kind of mulch is best; they’ll never reach a consensus.
Have them describe their ideal ornamental plant, however, and they might actually agree on a few traits:
■ easy to grow;
■ attractive to butterflies but not deer or rabbits;
■ tolerant of drought;
■ vigorous but not overly aggressive.
The perennial plant of the year for 2018, an allium called Millenium, boasts all of those attributes and more.
It’s especially prized for its spherical lavender- topurple flowers, produced by the dozen in mid- to late summer. (Most other ornamental alliums bloom in spring.)
The glossy, grasslike foliage, which reaches 1 or 1 ½ feet tall, is attractive even when the plant isn’t in bloom.
Members of the onion family, alliums are sometimes called ornamental onions. If you break off a leaf and hold it to your nose, you’ll get an unmistakable onion-y whiff — and immediately understand why animals shun it.
But the odor is rarely noticeable in everyday garden conditions.
The perennial plant of the year is chosen by the Perennial Plant Association, whose website describes it as a “trade association composed of growers, retailers, landscape designers and contractors, educators, and others that are professionally involved in the herbaceous perennial industry.”
Winners are chosen for qualities such as “suitable for a wide range of climatic conditions,” “good pest and disease resistance” and “multiple seasons of ornamental interest.”
Four nominees for 2019 have already been chosen. While we won’t know the winner for many months, any one of these would thrive in central Ohio gardens.
■ Sun King aralia, also known as Japanese spikenard, lights up shady corners with golden leaves. Although it produces spikes of white A closer look reveals that each flower head of Millenium is actually made up of many smaller flowers. flowers during summer, the glowing foliage is the main attraction.
Reaching several feet tall and wide, it appreciates consistent moisture and shelter from strong winds.
■ Hummelo stachys, also called betony, boasts an undemanding disposition and summertime spikes of showy lavender flowers adored by bees.
Like its relative lambs’ ears — a perennial with fuzzy gray leaves — it thrives in full sun and needs good drainage. It reaches a foot or 2 in height.
■ Angelina sedum, sometimes called stonecrop, is a low-growing succulent with chartreuse-to-golden leaves that sometimes acquire russet tones.
Sunny, well-drained conditions suit it best, and it looks terrific growing among rocks or spilling from a weathered urn.
■ Sun-loving calamint, aka
subsp. offers clouds of small white flowers and foliage with a refreshing, minty fragrance.
At 2 feet or less, it can work in an herb garden, with other perennials or as a groundcover.
If they could, bees and other pollinators probably would vote for this selection.