Garden

[x Hedge]

I have Egyptian onions (Allum cepa aggregatum), a hearty perennial that is milder than a green salad onion but sharper than the chives.

You can dig them up and eat the bulb and stem like a green salad onion, but dont have to.

You can just leave them in the ground and start snipping the greens in March/April. The bulb will survive our harsh winters and produce new green shoots again the following spring.

They form new baby bulbs, not underground, but on gnarly twisted growths at the top of a 20"to 36" fiberous, non-edible stalk. These always attract attention and everyone asks what it is. Even those that recognize it as some type of onion are intrigued. 

I snip, wash, chop, and freeze. Toss a handful of little green rings on top of pizza, soups, omlets, anything that likes a little onion-y green garnish.

[JustJazzmom]

That depends on what is unusual -- many shrubs I have in our garden are not in our neighborhood -- no one else grows them -- same for peonies. I tried to avoid the plants many people choose as landscape plants (arborvitae, Leyland cypress, European barberry, yews & forsythia). 

I have dwarf fothergillas, Japanese type flower peonies, a double flowered hydrangea, hybrid dogwood, Kousa pink dogwood -- most are white flowered if seen here.

I tried to plant a wide variety of plants because the more variety you have, the better it is for them -- less insect pests or diseases seen because you didn't plant a monoculture. In nature plants do not grow in rows or in special groups. Nature has things randomly planted. Humans try to organize nature to fit their needs.

[PINKdogWOOD]

Not much is of the usual vaariety in our yard.  As DH is a plantsman, landscaper, water feature & irrigation guy, a master gardener, he always brings home the unusual greenery.  It's jam-packed full and yet he always seems to find just one more nook or crannie to plant something, anything.

[x Hedge]

 @JustJazzmom, @PINKdogWOOD,

Maybe you could select just one unusual plant to share with us.

I chose the Egyptian Onions because everyone points them out and asks about them. They want to get a closer look at those gnarled stems producing baby bulbs, waving in the breeze well above the onion greens.

It's the reaction of others that tells me this is 'unusual'.

My neighbor has a HUGE old oak, a survivor from when this area (big city) was all forest land. Due to its unusual age and monstrous size, that tree is the most commented upon thing growing on his property.

Another neighbor has absolutely no clue about pruning and shaping the grapevines she planted. They've outgrown the grape arbor and are running amok, snaking across the lawn, entwining trees, fences, stretching out on to other people's property.

It's like looking at a train wreck, and you just can't look away. Believe me, everyone who's seen that overgrown tangled mass deems it highly unusual and wants a closer look.

What do you grow that causes others to always comment, ask questions, want a closer look, touch, or smell, and say 'I've never seen that before. '

[JustJazzmom]

@x Hedge I would have to say my dwarf forhergillas on the side of our house. The leaves come out after the small bottlebrush white blooms and in the fall they turn brilliant red, yellow and orange before dropping off for the winter.

They don't get pests either and that is a big plus. I hate to spray insecticides.

[gardenman]

In the ground in a little microclimate on the south side of the house right up against the basement walll and alongside the chimney is a datura/brugmansia that's reliably hardy for me there. It puts on quite the show come September and October with it's huge yellow flowers.

In a hanging basket I have a quirky little species type fuchsia I bought a few years back at Walmart of all places that has small but long red tubular flowers. I haven't seen that since then, but it's a neat little plant that flowers pretty much nonstop. I've also got a new geranium I just bought at Walmart yesterday that's quite gorgeous with a sort of cherry red and white flower.  Picture below. 

[mousiegirl]

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@JustJazzmom wrote:

That depends on what is unusual -- many shrubs I have in our garden are not in our neighborhood -- no one else grows them -- same for peonies. I tried to avoid the plants many people choose as landscape plants (arborvitae, Leyland cypress, European barberry, yews & forsythia). 

I have dwarf fothergillas, Japanese type flower peonies, a double flowered hydrangea, hybrid dogwood, Kousa pink dogwood -- most are white flowered if seen here.

I tried to plant a wide variety of plants because the more variety you have, the better it is for them -- less insect pests or diseases seen because you didn't plant a monoculture. In nature plants do not grow in rows or in special groups. Nature has things randomly planted. Humans try to organize nature to fit their needs.

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@JustJazzmom  I agree.  I plant something, and at some point it reseeds and comes up somewhere else in the garden, and I just leave it if it seems happy,

[mousiegirl]

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@x Hedge wrote:

I have Egyptian onions (Allum cepa aggregatum), a hearty perennial that is milder than a green salad onion but sharper than the chives.

You can dig them up and eat the bulb and stem like a green salad onion, but dont have to.

You can just leave them in the ground and start snipping the greens in March/April. The bulb will survive our harsh winters and produce new green shoots again the following spring.

They form new baby bulbs, not underground, but on gnarly twisted growths at the top of a 20"to 36" fiberous, non-edible stalk. These always attract attention and everyone asks what it is. Even those that recognize it as some type of onion are intrigued. 

I snip, wash, chop, and freeze. Toss a handful of little green rings on top of pizza, soups, omlets, anything that likes a little onion-y green garnish.

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@x Hedge  Are your onions red?  I see descriptions stating white onions, but I also see pictures of red, and I prefer the latter.

[x Hedge]

@mousiegirl,

On Egyptian Onions, in Spring when I dig bulbs up I've noticed the newer younger ones are white, but older bulbs are red on the outside. Peel the outer red layer and the rest of the bulb is white.

But if I dig the bulbs up in fall, the bulbs are bigger, pink/red color, teardrop shaped like expensive shallots. They grill beautifully in the NuWave oven.

[mousiegirl]

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@x Hedge wrote:

@mousiegirl,

On Egyptian Onions, in Spring when I dig bulbs up I've noticed the newer younger ones are white, but older bulbs are red on the outside. Peel the outer red layer and the rest of the bulb is white.

But if I dig the bulbs up in fall, the bulbs are bigger, pink/red color, teardrop shaped like expensive shallots. They grill beautifully in the NuWave oven.

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@x Hedge  Thank you.  I am going to buy some to grow.  Do you ever eat the bublets that grow on the top?