for sharing this pic. It delighted my heart!

Thank you, for letting me know how much you liked it.
That brought some sunshine to my heart.

@William, I found your pic of Allium 'Ostara' and retrieved this thread. Is 'Ostara' a cultivar of Allium hollandicum or A. giganteum or a different species?. It reminds me a lot of A. 'Purple Sensation'. I'm trying to get the large Alliums established here. First I need to know more about what's being bred these days. Any suggestion of sources? TYiA.
Arturo

Hi Arturo. 'Ostara' is very different from A. 'Purple Sensation'.
'Ostara' is a shorter Allium, with broad leaves that remain fresh throughout bloom. It also blooms much longer and the blooms are more "red" purple than the "blue" purple of 'Purple Sensation'.

I actually just posted a bit of info on the iris forum about Ostara, so I will copy it here, for you:


Allium 'Ostara' - A cross between A. karataviense and A. atropurpureum.
This is a fairly low Allium that is supposed to grow 16" (40 cm) tall, but actually in my garden it is lower. The height and bloom time in my garden is excellent for mixing with many IB's. Bloom time in other gardens may differ. The broad foliage will remain attractive throughout bloom. I guess this is a trait inherited from A. karataviense.
After bloom it will however still of course go completely dormant.
This Allium is much easier to grow than karataviense. It also has a lot nicer color for my taste as karataviense is whitish gray. For this reason it has replaced karataviense in my garden.
A word of warning though, is that 'Ostara' spreads very quickly through masses of tiny rice grain sized bulbs.

If it grows well in your area, i believe Ostara will be a good choice for a lower growing Allium. If you want big and tall Alliums with giant flower heads the very best I tried is 'Globemaster'. If you haven't already tried it, I would truly recommend doing so. If I could only grow one Allium, this would be it. It also usually blooms 3 times longer than 'Purple Sensation' in my garden as it usually blooms for 3 weeks. The flowers are sterile and the flower head just keeps on expanding during bloom.

I'm sorry, but I don't know about sources for bulbs in your area.

William, you already provided me with tons of information! Actually the kind of source that I was expecting is more of the information type. I can't / won't import bulbs for sanitary reasons, but I can always try with seeds. At present I only have the Scottish Rock Gd.Club as a source of Seedex. You've given me a lot of data!. I will definitely look into Globemaster. What about A.christophii?. Are there worthy cultivars of it?. Thanks again!
Arturo

Sadly I haven't tried A. christophii, but Globemaster is a cross between A. christophii and A. macleanii. For this reason I would expect A. christophii to be pretty good, as i think it has a strong influence regarding the size of the flower head and the long bloom time of Globemaster.

William thank you again. If possible, could you try to add all these pieces of information onto the plant data base here ?. I only checked Ostara, and it just has your beautiful picture only!
Arturo