Allium | Okanagan Xeriscape Association

Seed Heads in the Landscape

Claire — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 04:30:15 +0000

GARDENING WITH NATURE

Article by Sigrie Kendrick

Leave Seed Heads for a Winter Garden

In the world of gardening, we often focus on the fleeting glory of flowers with their vibrant colours and sweet fragrances that mark the peak of a plant’s ornamental appeal.

Yet there’s a quieter, more enduring beauty that emerges after the petals fall—one that extends the garden’s visual interest well beyond the traditional growing season.

Magical Seed Heads

The seed heads of xeric plants offer architectural interest, providing structure, texture, and movement that can transform a fading landscape from dormant to dynamic.

Among the most spectacular examples is Pulsatilla, commonly known as pasque flower or prairie crocus.

After its silky, bell-shaped blooms fade in early spring, this hardy perennial produces seed heads that are nothing short of magical. Each seed develops a long, feathery plume that catches light and moves with the slightest breeze, creating an ethereal display that can last for months.

These silvery, gossamer structures rise above the plant’s finely divided foliage like wisps of smoke. In late afternoon light, a patch of Pulsatilla seed heads becomes luminous, transforming an ordinary garden corner into something special.

The ornamental value of these seed heads extends beyond their immediate beauty. They provide crucial interest during the lean dormant months when many gardens lack structure.

While other perennials retreat underground or become mere stubble or sticks, Pulsatilla’s seed heads create focal points that draw the eye. They’re particularly effective when planted in drifts, where their collective movement creates a sense of flow that animates the garden even on still days.

Pulsatilla blooming in the spring

Pulsatilla seedhead left to add interest to the garden

Seed Heads Making a Bold Statement

Achillea millefolium, or yarrow, offers a completely different but equally compelling seed head display. Where Pulsatilla whispers, yarrow makes a bold statement. The flat-topped flower clusters that were a magnet for pollinators in summer persist into fall as architectural bronze medallions, their geometric precision providing strong horizontal lines that contrast beautifully with grasses and other vertical elements. These sturdy seed heads maintain their form through snow and ice, offering reliable structure when the garden needs it most. The ornamental impact of yarrow seed heads is enhanced by their incredible diversity. Different cultivars produce seed heads in varying sizes and colours, from the large, rust-coloured platters of “Gold Plate” to the smaller, more delicate structures of “New Vintage Red”. This variety of form allows gardeners to create layered compositions where seed heads of different scales and hues interact and evolve as light and weather conditions change throughout the dormant season. Native, wild yarrow flowers, once dead and dried, make attractive shapes in a winter garden, or in dried-flower winter bouquets.

Achillea millefolium blooming in the summer

Achillea millefolium seedheads in a winter garden

The Drama of Allium Seed Heads

Perhaps most stunning of these seed heads come from the many cultivars found in the Allium family. These spherical seed heads can range in size from a loonie up to the huge Allium “Globemaster”, which sports 8-10 inch flower heads. Allium seed heads possess a striking architectural beauty that transforms gardens long after their colourful blooms have faded. These structures, ranging from delicate silvery orbs to bold bronze globes, depending on the variety, create dramatic focal points with their perfect geometric forms perched atop slender, sturdy stems. The papery bracts that once enclosed the flowers now split open to reveal intricate star-shaped patterns, each segment radiating outward. Their sculptural quality is particularly captivating when backlit by morning or evening sun, which illuminates their translucent surfaces and casts delicate shadows. Whether left standing in autumn borders where they provide textural contrast against dying foliage, or cut for dried arrangements where their enduring form adds structure, Allium seed heads demonstrate nature’s ability to create lasting beauty with simplicity.

A variety of Allium blooming in the spring

Globe allium seedheads in a fall garden

Sigrie Kendrick is a master gardener and executive-director of the non-profit Okanagan Xeriscape Association.

Our Plant Database features more than 500 plants tested and ideally suited for the unique challenges of gardening in the Okanagan’s extreme climate, iincluding the plants in this article.

The post Seed Heads in the Landscape first appeared on Okanagan Xeriscape Association.

Allium for the Xeriscape Garden

Mark Godlewski — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 20:53:43 +0000

Gardening with Nature | January 2021

Article by Sigrie Kendrick

Planning your garden should unquestionably include bulbs. There are many drought-tolerant bulb options available, ranging from common crocuses to specialty Triteliea and everything in-between.

One of the ‘everything in-between’ categories which offer both common and uncommon varietals can be found in the Allium or Onion family. The Allium genus is comprised of more than 700 species grown for both culinary and ornamental purposes.

In the Okanagan Xeriscape Association’s demonstration garden on Gordon Drive in Kelowna, we grow a variety of Alliums and we always have bulbs available for purchase at the annual OXA Spring Plant Sale, the primary fundraiser for this non-profit organization.

Both Allium cernuum and Allium karataviense are great drought-tolerant bulbs to consider adding to your garden.

Allium cernuum, commonly called Nodding Onion is featured in our native garden and it occurs locally in grasslands and dry, open, rocky sites. This species is the most common native onion in the Southern Interior and is easily identified by its pink to rose, occasionally white, drooping or nodding flower heads held on top of leafless stocks, reaching a height of 12-18 inches with a spread half its height.

Like all the Allium family, Nodding Onion emits a strong onion odour when cut or bruised and as such is not favoured by deer. Interior native people had many culinary uses for Allium cernuum and it was also used traditionally as a disinfectant and to alleviate insect bites. This perennial is hardy in zones 4-8, blooming from June to August in full sun to part-sun locations and it attracts a variety of pollinators.

Fig. 1 – Nodding Onion (Allium cernuum), Gwen Steele

Allium karataviense or Turkistan Onion is an ornamental onion native to Central Asia, specifically Kazakhstan, grown for both its soft pink umbrel flowers, reaching approximately 12 inches in height, and for its green-grey foliage. Allium karataviense blooms earlier in the season and is typically in flower in the OXA demonstration garden in May, delighting those in attendance at our annual Spring Plant Sale.

Allium karataviense is an important source of food for pollinators, especially butterflies. This perennial is seldom bothered by pest or disease but can suffer from bulb rot in overly irrigated, poorly drained sites.

Allium bulb types are late spring/early summer bloomers that go summer dormant. You can cut bulb-types to ground level when foliage begins to turn yellow in summer.

Fig. 2 – Turkistan Onion (Allium karataviense), Gwen Steele

A relatively new addition to the Allium scene is the cultivar, Allium ‘Millenium’, and while not currently planted in the demonstration garden, volunteers have been testing this perennial in their private gardens and we look forward to introducing it to the UnH2O demonstration garden in the coming year.

This hybrid ornamental onion is easily grown in average, well-drained soil in full to part-sun locations and produces masses of rose-pink globe-shaped flowers at a height of 15-20 inches, with a similar spread. This Allium is not a bulb and hence blooms later in the season. It can be found in flower in mid to late summer, often covered with hungry pollinators. It should be cut to the ground in the late fall.

Allium ‘Millenium‘ was awarded the ‘Plant of the Year’ by the Perennial Plant Association for 2018.

All the above Alliums make excellent cut and dried flowers where their globe-shaped blooms provide an interesting contrast to more traditional flower forms.

Though many Allium are traditionally planted in the fall, ‘Millenium‘ is available from many bulb companies with a shipping date to our planting zone beginning in the first week of May.

Fig. 3 – Allium Millenium, Sigrie Kendrick

Fig. 4 – Allium Millenium, provenwinners.com

If you want some stunning floral displays in your xeriscape garden, think of the Allium family.

The post Allium for the Xeriscape Garden first appeared on Okanagan Xeriscape Association.