I came upon this slice of magic one summer in June to which both onions and garlic were related– it was a row of neat green stick legs atop which purple and mauve ice lollies glittered! Who would have dreamt that these flowers like giant purple balls were the cousins of onions and garlic that heal us in so many ways?

There they stood on the edge of a garden in London like mauve and purple sugar balloons. They were giant ornamental onions, aptly called Allium Gigantium which are used as borders in gardens for their rich colours. Purple Sensation is one of the most exquisite and popular ones and has got an award of Garden Merit!
 It flowers in April, May and June but is to be seen in the U.K., USA, and is originally from the lower mountain slopes of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Allium is a latin word for garlic. 

Flowering onions belong to the lily family. Vegetable alliums are chives (now available in the University of Agricultural Science, UAS, medicinal garden), garlic, leek and onion. But there are also these lovely ornamental onion flowers which are good to plant with roses, as they protect them from pests.

This stunning border plant can grow 150 cm. tall and its round, tubby orb is made up of many purple or mauve flowers. It is simply an enormous onion wearing gorgeous colours! It coaxes butterflies and humming birds to visit its generous flowerheads that can be a foot in diameter! They can even be 40 inches or more. They  resist deer, mice and chipmunks.

In July they can rise to four feet producing glittering purple, white, pink, blue or crimson heads that swell to six inches or more across. Smaller ones are called drumstick alliums! They keep pests away with their onion magic, being part of the allium family which consists of 1250 species related to the garlic and onion.

 Also called ‘flowering garlics’ they were widely grown in Elizabethan gardens and were called ‘mollies’, a name got from Allium moly, the Golden garlic, which Pliny said was the most precious of all plants!

Some of these ornamental beauties are sweetly scented while some of them have a garlic smell, and hence are used in cooking. But all of them look gorgeous.

pics and text: Daksha Hathi