Hardneck garlic needs a real stretch of cold below 10°C to trigger clove formation, and no other NZ zone gives it more of that than cool/mountain does. That's the reason this zone plants latest of the three — near the June winter solstice, rather than the early-autumn start a milder garden uses — and it's worth knowing before comparing the five varieties sourced here through Koanga Institute, three of which are true garlic and two of which aren't.
The Comparison
| Variety | Type | Harvest timing | Notable for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rocombole Early White | True garlic (hardneck) | Earliest of the three main-crop types | Strong flavour, pearly white skin, edible flower spikes |
| Rocombole Early Red | True garlic (hardneck) | Same early timing as Early White | Red-skinned twin of Early White, flattish bulb shape, strong Farmers Market appeal |
| Rocombole Ruby Red | True garlic (hardneck) | Between the early Rocamboles and later main-crop types | Dark red skin, vigorous grower |
| Elephant Garlic | Not true garlic — a leek relative | Same May-June planting window as the others | Only variety in this set unaffected by garlic rust; huge bulbs, edible flower spike and bulbils |
| Society Garlic | Not true garlic — ornamental allium | Perennial, not harvested as a bulb crop | Drought-tolerant, purple edible flowers, garlic flavour without the aftertaste |
All five come from Koanga Institute as heirloom, open-pollinated stock, with no hybrid garlic anywhere in the set — worth knowing if you plan to replant from your own cloves next season rather than buying in fresh. Garlic always grows on from cloves, never true seed; the seed-saving guide for NZ gardens covers how that principle plays out zone by zone across other crops.
The Three True Garlics
Rocombole Early White and Rocombole Early Red are the same Henry Harrington Southland Collection hardneck, split only by skin colour — both flattish-bulbed, both ringed with one row of large cloves around a central flower stem, and both the first of the main-crop garlics to come out of the ground. Early Red carries an extra note about strong demand around the Christmas/holiday market period, if you're growing for more than your own kitchen.
Rocombole Ruby Red sits later in the harvest order than the two Early varieties, closer to the main-crop garlics generally — useful for spreading a harvest out rather than pulling the whole bed in one go, though this dataset doesn't currently carry a true late main-crop cultivar to extend that spread further.
All three are hardnecks, meaning each sends up a central flower stem (the scape) worth snapping off while it's still young — redirecting the plant's energy into the bulb instead of the flower, which matters more here than in a milder zone simply because this crop gets the full cold-chill season these varieties are bred to use.
The Two That Aren't Garlic
Elephant Garlic is a leek by botany, not a true garlic, and that's exactly why it's worth a place in this bed: it's the only variety here that garlic rust doesn't touch, a real advantage if rust has already been a problem in this garden — see Rust and White Rot in NZ Garlic. It grows far larger than the true garlics, throws an edible flower spike, and can produce bulbils and "mother bulbs" that regrow into full-sized bulbs the following year.
Society Garlic isn't a bulb crop at all — a perennial, drought-tolerant ornamental allium grown as much for its purple flowers as its foliage, with Koanga's own line on the appeal: "you get the garlic flavour without the garlic breath." It clumps and divides like any perennial rather than being lifted and cured. Worth growing for a garlic-flavoured edible flower in the border, not as a stand-in for a real garlic harvest.
Planting for This Zone
Every variety here shares the same cool/mountain window: cloves go in May to June, spaced 10–15cm apart on the diagonal, roughly 5cm deep, with harvest running December to January — around seven months in the ground. That May-June timing is deliberately the latest of NZ's three zones, and it isn't arbitrary: hardneck garlic like the three Rocamboles above forms its cloves in response to an extended cold spell, and cool/mountain's genuinely cold winter gives it more of that chilling than a temperate or sub-tropical garden can. Planting into the depths of that cold, rather than trying to get ahead of it, is what this zone's timing is built around.
Beyond timing, the cultivar notes agree on the basics regardless of type: light, well-drained soil enriched with compost ahead of planting, and a mulch afterward to keep weeds down. One more cue, from Elephant Garlic's own notes, carries across every variety in this bed: once the tops begin browning, ease off watering, and get bulbs out of the ground before the foliage has fully collapsed — wait past that point and they risk splitting underground.
Planning the rest of the bed around this garlic crop? See the full NZ Cool/Mountain Planting Calendar →.