About this bunch
Most dried alliums are sold on a tall stem, where the head reads as a flower on a long vertical. This one is the other way round. The head is from our giant-head cultivar at 25cm across, and the stem is cut deliberately short at 30cm, so the sphere takes up about two-thirds of the total height. It reads as an object rather than a flower.
That proportion is the point. A short stem sits well in a shallow bowl or a wide-mouthed vessel, where a full-length allium looks stranded, and one head on its own is enough for a table. The colour is a natural beige-tan, undyed and unbleached, and it softens with age rather than going patchy.
Alliums are the toughest thing we dry. The head is a composite of hundreds of small florets, each bracing the others, so it survives handling that would wreck most dried stems. Two honest notes. Florets do work loose over the years, and you can either wire them back on or pull a few more out and let it look sculpted, which is what most people end up preferring. And direct sunlight bleaches the beige towards pale straw, so keep it off a south-facing sill. Barn-dried at Salle Moor Hall. Seasonal, while the late-summer cut lasts.