Apologies for writing about this two years in a row, but few plants give us more joy in the fall garden that Allium kiiense. A couple of years ago, nursery sales of this were so poor that we planted about 40 plants to create a green mass on 1′ centers, as one would do with a groundcover like liriope or mondo grass. Despite being a tight clumping species, after two years the mass knitted together nicely as you can see below. The first photo is of it in bud in early October, and the second as the flowers opened in mid-October. Allium kiiense hails from the Kii peninsula in Southern Japan. As you can imagine, the flowers are abuzz with an array of pollinators, who so appreciate all fall-flowering plants. Oddly, in two decades of growing this, we’ve never seen a seedling. Hardiness Zone 5a-9b.
Making sense with Kiiense
allium, Allium kiiense, Dwarf Plants, fall bloomers, fall blooming bulbs, flowering onion, geophyte, hardy allium, japanese garden plants, Japanese native, lilac flowers
No volunteer seedlings could be caused by a variety of factors. Perhaps the plants you have are clonal and are self sterile. Could they be allelopathic to their own seedlings, or as some Allium s go, the seed can be so stubborn to germinate that without highly specific circumstances they simply won’t germinate