What Flower Bulbs Look Like Onions

Timing and patience are most important in getting a good harvest from your garlic.

What flower bulbs look like onions.

Numerous flowers grow on in pointy clusters on showy stalks above the leaves. Bulbs with a papery covering are called tunicate bulbs the tunic helps protect the bulb from drying out when it s resting or waiting to be planted. There are various common names for this ornamental onion but none refer to what is clearly its most striking feature. Make sure the plants will have enough cool nights to develop bulbs and cloves.

The rigid stalk penetrates the bulb and after harvest its early decay causes the entire onion to decay. Inside a true bulb is a central shoot that contains layers of leaves and immature flowers. The flower head and seed head look like fireworks exploding. Some cultivars to look for include ozawa with larger purple flower heads and alba which has white cup shaped florets.

Overwintered dry in basement. But also look out for signs of pests that are stunting growth. Nematodes cause tops to yellow prematurely and bulbs to deform while thrips show up as white spots on the leaves. Its small quarter inch cream or white colored flowers are six parted and the petals have a green heart shaped structure on them.

This is why it s important to let leaves of bulbs like tulips and daffodils remain and stay green until they naturally die back. They may look interesting even ornamental but they signal that something went wrong. Nodding onion allium cernuum produces flopping mop heads of flowers in pretty shades of pink and purple. The flower stems.

Unless you re growing onions allium cepa to collect their seeds you don t want want bulbs on their tops. They do best in well drained alkaline soil kept dry during their winter dormancy. All is not lost after an onion flowers. Once your onions bolt their bulbs stop growing and their storage capacity diminishes.

While its display is dramatic there is one serious drawback to growing this plant. Onions are biennial which means they ordinarily produce bulbs in their first year of growth then if left in the garden they flower and bear seed in their second year. Schubert s allium is a spring flowering bulb with strap like foliage that is planted in the autumn. Larger bulbs capable of more than one blooming stem.

The bulbs look like onions but do not smell like onions. With bulbs planted in your garden this central shoot forms after flowers fade. True bulbs such as daffodils tulips hyacinths and snowdrops often have a papery skin or tunic on the outside much like an onion.