Allium senescens L. is native from middle, eastern, southeastern, and southwestern Europe into Russia and Asia. German garlic or broadleaf chives, as it is sometimes called, grows from a rhizome/bulb structure to between 8" and 40" in height. The foliage is thin, and strap like. The scape is solid, squarish. Along with A. nutans L., they are the parents of the hybrid 'Sugar Melt'. Photo by Wietse Mellema of a field of A. senescens L. in his bulb farm in the Netherlands.
Allium senescens ssp. glaucum (Schrad. ex Poir.) Dostal is a small, late flowering rhizomatous onion. The "cowlick onion" or the "spiral onion" is well known in cultivation... or is it? The horticultural entity known under the "glaucum" name is represented in cultivation by a whole range of grey-leafed, spiraling dwarf plants that flower in late summer to early autumn. Photo by Arnold Trachtenberg.
'Blue Eddy' is a seedling selected, named and photographed by Mark McDonough. The name is a fanciful allusion to the extra dwarf blue-gray swirls of foliage, like small swirling eddies of water. The plant is very effective as a ground-cover. Depending on the season and light from the time of day, the foliage appears grayish green to grayish-blue. Autumn flowers are pale pink on 6"-8" (15-20 cm) stems.
