Hi - Is there a big difference between Ivory Halo (Bailhalo) & Elegantissima. I have a 3rd season Bailhalo ... love it so much I dug up 2 huge Hostas last Fall to be replaced with IH Cornus Alba. But all I found were Elegantissima & since the foliage looked quite identical & tag info as well, I got 2 ... planted them next to each other. Will the 3 of them eventually pass up as same shrubs? TIA for your input! Â;)

After looking up some pictures of penstemon husker red I think that you are right. Thanks so much!

You have some options as to what to plant for green garlic - you can plant a full head, individual cloves and just space them closely or the little bulbils that come out of the seed heads of hardneck garlic. All will work fine to get essentially garlic scallions. Garlic chives are a different thing - allium tuberosum versus garlic which is allium sativum - but garlic chives do have a very mild garlic flavor and work well in cooking though they are a bit invasive via seeds when left in the ground. Depending on the weather in your zone, you could probably get green garlic for harvest in either spring or fall. The problem with succession planting for full season harvest is that garlic is day length sensitive and it will drop all its leaves and go dormant during the long hot days of summer. In zone 5b, if you planted for green garlic now, you might get some harvest but by mid July almost all of my garlic has died down and bulbs left in the ground don't start again until mid September at the earliest.

Garlic doesn't produce real seed, but hardneck garlics do put up a stalk that has top-sets on it, called bulbils. I plant some bulbils every fall, along with some cloves from mature garlic bulbs, but only to increase my stock. The bulbils will produce very small "rounds" the next summer, not the "spring garlic" you are looking for. So here's what you want to do. To get mature garlic bulbs, plant the garlic cloves in the fall. I plant mine in October, then pile the bed with chopped leaves and cover the whole thing with a layer of pine straw to hold the leaves down in windy weather. Harvest the next June or July when about half of the leaves turn yellow. To get Spring Garlic, plant the cloves (from mature bulbs) in the early spring when you plant lettuce, etc. Add a layer of composted manure (onions and garlic like nitrogen). Harvest when the leaves get big enough to look interesting, but certainly by the time the leaves start to yellow. Eat the bulb, or replant the rounds in the fall for a mature crop. Hope that helps. Catherine