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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-363
Nodding Onion
Allium cernuum
Nodding onion is a native prairie bulb whose bulb, leaf and flower are all edible raw or cooked, with a spicy onion bite - some of the best eating of any wild onion relative. It grows through the cool part of the year and goes summer dormant, its foliage disappearing after a mid-to-late-summer bloom, so it needs no summer water once established. That late bloom feeds butterflies and hummingbirds at a point in the season when almost nothing else nearby is still flowering. Unusually for the genus, it actively prefers alkaline soil above pH 7.2 rather than merely tolerating it.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–8
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Rhizosphere- Soil pH
- 6–8.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 12–18 in
- Mature spread
- 4–6 in
- Plant spacing
- 12 in
- Root type
- Bulb
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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- Primary
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- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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