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May 23, 2006
The Color Purple
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Is purple or mauve a particularly fashionable color this year? May is generally a purple month. The pale purple Wisteria has just bloomed, it comes in pink and white as well, but mauve is the default color. NYC has some amazing wisteria, not only draped over stately landmarks like the pergola at the Conservatory Garden or the Osbourne Terrace at BBG, but eating townhouses from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village! In the fight between man and nature, wisteria often wins.
It is also lilac season. Although the common lilacs have finished blooming, their peak was the first week of May this year, the little leafs continue the cycle. Lilac "Miss Kim" and Lilac meyeri, Palibin although not as well known, are both exceptionally fragrant, and still blooming in parks.
In addition to these old stanbys, this year we have noticed a craze, a wave, of giant Alliums. Alliums of course, are onions and it's the purple flowered ornamental ones we're talking about here, not garlic, leeks, or scallions. Purple spheres are hovering over plantings from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Used to be that Alliums were quite recherche, and knowledgeable gardeners would include a few in their annual bulb order, and the following spring, less knowledgeable gardeners would exclaim at the sight of softball size flowers held up by a single slender 3-5 foot stem. Well, you know a plant has arrived when it is the featured spring planting around Columbus Circle. John Scheepers' bulb catalogue offers 29 different varieties of ornamental Allium, they come in white, greenish white and all shades of purple. There is clearly an Allium for every occasion, but the purple balls have become ubiquitous.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at May 23, 2006 08:18 PM