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Wild allium running riot
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Posted by merilus (My Page) on Wed, Jun 1, 05 at 17:54
| My front garden has been infested with a strange wild onion for the past two years or so. It has white bulblets, about the size of young garlic bulbs, and sends up one very stiff, narrow shoot. If it is left undisturbed, it forms a head of small bulblets, although there doesn't seem to be a conspicuous flower beforehand. Despite the fact that I pull keep digging the plants up and never allow them to form heads, the wretched things keep spreading. I can't find out what the plant is. It's definitely not chives or ransoms. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what it might be? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| It is 'Field Garlic' - Allium oleraceum; a rather scrawney and weedy wild onion widespread in well-drained soil and potentially highly invasive. It rarely bothers to flower and puts nearly all its efforts into one or two very narrow leaves and the production of tiny bulbils in the flower-head as a means of spreading about. I've got it coming up in between pavers and slabs, so I can sympathise ... and what a nuisance it is too. I wouldn't mind if it paid its rent by producing small heads of flowers, but it does very little apart from looking very untidy. To keep it under control, you have to either spray with glyphosate (not invariably successful and Dalapon would probably be better if you could get it) or gently pull the emerging young plants. No guesses as to your likely option! If you leave it until the flower head has formed properly, you allow umpteen youngsters to re-populate your soil. A small consolation is that you can use the young leaves in a similar manner to chives and they impart a mixed garlic/onion flavour. |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| Thanks Dave. I've just had a look at some pictures, and that's definitely the culprit. It would be difficult for me to use weedkiller even if I wanted to, as the A Oleraceum is rampaging around among some very dense plantings. I've already resigned myself to spending a lot of time pulling it up, but I like to know what I'm dealing with. I do sometimes wonder where it came from, though. It doesn't seem to be infesting any neighbouring gardens, and I've never noticed it growing wild round here (NE Surrey). |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| If it is field garlic then you are lucky to have it - it is quite a rare plant in Britain - it is more likely than your weed is Crow Garlic (Allium vineale) which is a much more widespread weed. |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| If it's the rare one, Aaron, I'll be delighted to share my good fortune with anyone who'd like a bag or two of it. |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| The one here is definitely Allium oleraceum and not A. vineale. It seems locally widespread and may be that the species is generaly scarce, but locally common. |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| Oh, you grow exotics too, Dave! 'Crammed with far too many plants' is a fair description of my garden. |
RE: Wild allium running riot
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| I've been trying to get rid of these damned things since I moved into my house 12 years ago.I've even tried dealing with a square yard of garden at a time, sifting through the soil, up to 6 inches deep, to removed every miniscule bulb (there can be over 1000 of them in a square yard) but by the next season it is as if I have done nothing. I now resign myself to spending 3 weeks a year, end March/beginning of April, to going out in the garden twice a day and deheading them. They aren't diminishing but they aren't increasing either - I hope!! |
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