And now, as the greatest bulb planting season of the year nears its climax, we should not neglect to plant them in the frenzy leading up to Christmas. That would be a mistake and you'll be kicking yourself next May when they fail to appear.

Many of the Alliums are supremely architectural in their flowering prime, and quite brilliant at taking over where the tulips leave off, from May to late summer, depending on the variety.

The best kinds of Allium are very pleasing to the eye when in flower, with their perfect globe-shaped purple heads soaring up from among other plants, making them the perfect foil for the stiff, vertical stems of irises, many of which also flower around the same time. They also look great in among the Pheasant Tail grass Stipa arundinacea, which makes perfect cover for that lovely game bird when they both assume the same colouring in autumn.

It is not too late to plant Alliums now and over the next few weeks. Reliably perennial when happy, they'll return year after year once their needs are met. Often they self-seed around to make a large, handsome colony.

Just check the bulbs are firm and not hollow when buying.

All Alliums are easy to grow in a soil or compost that is not too heavy or sticky.

They are best planted amongst other things, rather than standing alone like sentries in a parade ground. This is to camouflage their lowlying leaves, which die back as they come into flower. The only drawback to Alliums is that they can smell strongly, so you might not want them right under your nose at all times.

This drawback is particularly noticeable in the intriguing and rather broody type formerly known as Allium siculum and now renamed Nectaroscordum siculum.

That is unpleasantly strong on a bright May morning among the roses, but I wouldn't let that stop you from growing them.

Another one that wears its onion odour with candour is the very pretty, soft pink A.

roseum. This is a prolific selfseeder with a talent for placing itself in all the right places.

There are also stocky, giantheaded Alliums and there are sensationally tall or big-headed purple types, such as 'Gladiator' and 'Globemaster.

Good as all these are, it is hard to beat the stance and colour of the tall, globe-headed Allium hollandicum, particularly the variety called 'Purple Sensation' (2.5ft/ 75cm).

I cannot recommend this one highly enough. It's the one you see in photographs, planted en masse under the much-copied Laburnum Arch in the late Rosemary Verey's garden.

The not quite so tall 'Mount Everest' has nice, almost silvery foliage when young in spring, but I found the subsequent flower ill-formed, and a disappointingly dirty white which added nothing to the scheme of things.

Then there is the amazing, low-growing, June-flowering Allium cristophii, which carries a cartoonishly big mauvish head, about the size of a football. Everybody loves it on sight, even complete non-gardeners.

Allium sphaerocephalon flowers later, in July and August, and is 3ft tall, slender, with oval, wine-coloured flowers and a tendency to lean forward. Good with ornamental grasses, against which it can support itself, it is beloved of bumble bees and could also be planted in a wilder meadow setting, somewhere that doesn't need to be mown until autumn, when it has shed its seed.

Children in particular absolutely love A. giganteum, which has rosy-mauve globe heads in June, a whopping 4.5ft high. This one stands up remarkably well to being buffeted by wind, which is a most useful trait. So those of you gardening on a roof or balcony or other windswept locations should take note.

The tallest of them all, at 6ft, is Allium altissimum and this has small, mauve globes that make a good counterpoint to reedy or grassy companions. Lastly I'll mention the little A. oreophilum (about 6" tall), which has rich pink flowers in May and June (especially the variety 'Zwanenburg'). It hails from Central Asia, where it grows on sunny, stony slopes, a location you could copy at home.

WHAT'S ON 29 November - 17 December: 'Flower Power', a group art exhibition of contemporary "ower and botanical art. National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.

6 December, 8pm: 'Insights . . . A Botanical Artist's Approach to Watercolour Painting' by artist and keen gardener, Patricia Jorgensen. RHSI event, Wesley House, Leeson Park Avenue, Dublin 6.

10 February 2007: 'Coming Full Circle . . . Bringing Nature Back into the Garden'. Early booking is advised for this seminar of the Garden & Landscape Designers Association. Speakers include Matthew Jebb and a visual extravaganza by internationally renowned garden photographer Jerry Harpur.

Booking from Koraley Northen on 01-278 1824 or email: info@glda. ie BUY THE BOOK From the enterprising Collins Press based in Cork comes Irish Wild Plants: Myths, Legends & Folklore, a companion volume to Irish Trees by Niall Mac Coitir, with once again a "ne set of original watercolours and line drawings by Grania Langrishe ( 25). Mac Coitir, an Irish speaker with a great love of nature who now works for Fingal County Council, mines a rich seam, telling how the wild plants of Ireland have been bound up in our culture from earliest times, appearing in the Brehon Laws and early nature poetry as well as in myth, legend and folklore.

Herbal medicine, until fairly recently an important element in daily Irish life, was based on the premise that the body had 365 parts and a plant existed that would cure the ailments of each part. St Colmcille's favourite plant, says Mac Coitir, was the now-banned antidepressant St John's Wort, widely used "as protection against evil and melancholia".

A FAREWELL After 10 years of writing a weekly gardening column for the Sunday Tribune, always from an organic perspective and starting at a time when it was neither fashionable nor pro"table to show one's green credentials, this correspondent is bowing out and moving on. I hope you have enjoyed reading about the art of gardening as much as I've enjoyed writing about it. Not that I'm opting out of either gardening or writing . . . as Seamus Heaney said: "Between my "nger and my thumb the squat pen rests . . . I'll dig with it."