Chives

​(Allium schoenoprasum)

​A well-known culinary plant. It is a perennial herb
that makes an attractive edging for the greater part of
the year, but dies down in winter. The giant variety
attains 15 to 18 inches with flowers the size of a half-
crown which remain in beauty for two months.
It has not, however, the same flavour as the type.
To propagate, divide up the clumps either in spring or
summer and plant out the ordinary kind 9 inches apart
and the giant variety a foot to 15 inches apart. They
can be raised from seed sown as soon as ripe, in drills
a quarter of an inch deep. Unless the seed is wanted for
propagation, the flower heads should be shorn off as
soon as they fade, otherwise they seed themselves so
abundantly over a wide area that they become a nuisance
to eradicate. Those required for culinary purposes should
be kept continually picked in order to secure a constant
succession of tender young growths.