Day 155: Sicilian honey garlic

Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year

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Sicilian honey garlic (Nectaroscordum siculum) has a bit of an identity crisis, owing to botanists booting it out rather unceremoniously from the bosom of the allium family to  linger forlornly upon the fringes. To those of us who know no better, it’s clearly a rather fancy onion – it even smells like one – and were the bees that flock to its flowers in possession of the necessary laryngeal apparatus to produce a hoot, they couldn’t be persuaded to give one either way. To the gardener it’s a rather beautiful explosion of cream and burgundy striped bell-shaped flowers, albeit one that seeds about prolifically. To prevent your borders from becoming nectaroscordum forests, you’re supposed to deadhead the things before they have a chance to go to seed. I never do.


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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, photographer, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.

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