I snooped around several botanical gardens recently, and all of them were growing a particular plant I’d never seen before.
It sure looked like an allium, but I wasn’t aware there was such a thing as summer-blooming alliums. Whatever it was, it was healthy and completely plastered with happy bees.
Because the first 3 of 4 botanical gardens I visited did not label the cultivar even though one of those gardens probably had several hundred of the plants scattered throughout the property (don’t get me started), it took me awhile to figure out the mystery. The 4th garden finally came through for me:
There are two summer-blooming alliums that are quite popular right now. One is ‘Summer Beauty’ (Allium tanguticum or angulosum) and the other is ‘Millenium’ (Allium hybrida).
Both plants have 2-inch lavender, ball-type blooms. And both are clump-forming plants that flower for many weeks in July and August.
These beauties definitely attract pollinators if the swarming honeybees were any indication. The plants prefer full sun and are drought-tolerant once established.
They are now at the very top of my plant wish list.