Alliums coming up too soon?

Most o these types of Alliums are wintergreen. That is they have their leaves over winter and flower in spring. By then the leaves are often very tatty. You can in fact remove the leaves once the plants begin to flower. Be careful if you do, the flower stalk is often only very loosely attached to the bulb.

thanks owdboggy, that is a relif, i have grown them once before, but i bought the bulbs in a spring sale so they went in late, they did give a lovely display tho, so hopefully i should still be in for a treat in the sping - i have sunk loads of them! and you know this is a really good site, i only found it last night and i must admit i am completely hooked!

Trouble is there are hundreds of species of Allium and they range from 4 feet tall globes to 2 inch high chandeliers with almost every colour available too.They all like well drained soil in sun. Some are dead easy and some are incredibly dificult to gorw. Some (many!) are appalling seed weeds and some are even worse bulb weeds. There is at present no up to date book on them. Oh and many are edible, even the ornamental ones!

thanks so much for your help, your info is really useful. i have come accross quite a few different types of allium in my time as a florist, but more as a cut flower so i have'nt had much experience of growing them- but from what you have said i think i have it right. i have about 12 different types all planted along my side fence, with lillies, cornflower, poppies, anttirinham, love in the mist and several other plants that can become thugs if you let them so i don't really mind if they do spread a bit, it is a very open sunny area and the theme of this area is to be a bit wild and natual looking so i think they will fit in well! once again thanks for your help.

Most plants seem to know what they are doing (unlike us gardeners!) so even if they are a little confused this year they will sort themselves out for next year. One of my friends left some daffodils unplanted until Feb one year, but they flowered all the same....in June! She had lots of people asking what they were as you don''t expect to see daffs in Summer!