Chive Blossoms

I obviously like purple.  Chives are one of my favorite plants!  Not just favorite herbs-- favorite plants.  Obviously, I like including as many edibles as possible in any design, even if it's main function is ornamental.  Chives are perennial, low-maintenance, and stay perky most of the year.  Those spikes add fantastic height and dimension in a planting.  Then the gravy-- a mother-load of onion-y, herb-y goodness to add to your favorite dishes.  And and and!  They BLOSSOM!  Those sweet purple puffs aren't only so pretty, but they're edible.  Stif-fry, add them in salads (and seem really sophisticated), or incorporate them into some other culinary delight.  The chive blossoms are an annual event.

I hope to do more plantings with both chives and lavender.  They like similar conditions-- full-sun, well-drained soil, and they have successive bloom time.  Right now, my chives are in full flowering splendor.  The lavender is green, fragrant, but not yet sprung to life.  It usually sends it's purple spikes out in June.  There's often a second bloom later in the summer too!  Between the two plants you find an array of aesthetic beauty along with scent, taste, and texture.

As I look around my home garden, I see purple popping up in multiple spots.  The butterfly bush in the back neighboring the grape vines.  The lilac I plan to plant once we've built the deck.  The little flowers on the rosemary bushes.  Some of our client's ask how to tie together their gardens.  This is one of the ways I like to build a feeling of consistency-- repeated themes of color, plant, texture, or grouping.