Whether you just call it allium or allium, you're probably like other gardeners and fell in love with this plant because of its purple flowers. But the flowers of the ornamental onion are not always purple. There are also exceptions.
What colors do ornamental onion flowers have?
Ornamental onion, also called allium, often has purple flowers in various shades such as lilac, purple-violet or magenta. Well-known varieties with purple tones are 'Ostara', 'Gladiator', 'Purple Sensation' and 'Summer Drummer'. However, there are also varieties with white, yellow or blue flowers.
Varieties with purple flowers
From lilac to purple to magenta and lavender, almost everything is represented in the colors of ornamental onions. Thanks to the huge number of varieties that are now available, there are almost no limits to your wishes in terms of intensity, brightness and mixing ratio.
Here are well-known and widespread varieties of ornamental onion, which have various forms of a purple color - these varieties are perfect solitary plants:
- ‘Ostara’: purple
- ‘Gladiator’: lilac
- ‘Purple Sensation’: red-violet
- ‘Summer Drummer’: violet
Not all varieties bloom purple
But if you thought that ornamental onions were only available with purple flowers, you are wrong. These plants are also available with white, yellow or even blue flowers. For example, you can create an arrangement of different colored flowering varieties in your garden.
Pure white flowers, for example, have the varieties called 'Graceful Beauty' (March to April), 'Mount Everest' and 'Ivory Queen'. With the golden leek and especially with the variety 'Jeannine' you get golden yellow accents in the garden.
These species/varieties are also interesting because of their flower color(s):
- ‘Pinball Wizard’: dark pink
- ‘Pink Jewel’: pink to pink
- Giant ornamental onion: dark wine red
- ‘Red Mohican’: bordeaux
- ‘Silverspring’: metallic white, slightly pink
- ‘Globemaster’: blue to violet blue
- Star ball garlic: silvery, violet
- gentian leek: gentian blue
- Sulphur leek: golden yellow
- Blue tongue leek: silvery pink
After flowering, the color gradually fades away
When the flowering period is over, the flower color slowly disappears. The seeds develop and the former inflorescence dries. It becomes grayish to brownish. If you want to see the color of the flowers even in autumn and winter, you should cut off the opened flowers along with the stems and dry them.
Tip
The typical purple color of ornamental onions looks fantastic next to yellow or orange flowering perennials! The purple really makes them light up.
