Underplanting Allium

[JillThePlantKiller]

I’m completely in love with my allium - big, small every shade or purple and whites. But they’re untidy on the ground.

In my local park they have planted them in the catmint, which looked really good a couple of weeks ago when the mint was short and the lollipops stood out. But now as the catmint flowers, I think they compete a bit too much.

Just wondering what others do?

Geraniums are good for hiding Allium foliage as the foliage appears first as just as the as string to look tatty, the Geraniums grow up and cover it. There are smaller Nepetas such Kit Cat and Cat’s Pajamas.

@AlwaysGardening thank you. Great ideas.

I’ll second this, assuming the perennial cranesbill geraniums. In fact that what I’ve done in my garden.

According to Monty Don, you can cut down allium foliage as soon as you’d like. Unlike other bulbs, you don’t need to wait for the foliage to die back. My alliums are nearly over, I’m going to chop them all off by the end of this week (except bulgaricums, which are still going strong). Mine are planted amongst lots of other summer flowering plants like crocosmias, salvias, cannas, verbenas, ferns, grasses etc. It’s not underplanting as such, more of a successive planting scheme.

Agree with geraniums but ferns and alliums look lovely too. You can buy evergreen ferns for most conditions.

Equally ornamental grasses look lovely with alliums. I have allium Christophii amongst Luzula Nivea (an evergreen perennial that looks like a grass) and they are looking beautiful at the moment.

@Beebumble2 thanks I’ll look for those

@Koulibiak Grabbing my scissors now! Your garden sounds lovely.

@TheGirlattheBack ferns and grasses sound lovely. Off to do more research.