Onion weed
Markieq
Posts: 3
my beds and corner of my lawn are being taken over by a grass like weed that stinks of onion and grows from a little bulb. I've tried digging it all out, but it just comes back, I've tried roundup but it has no effect, ive recently dug everything else out of the bed and tried mixing in iron of sulphate to change the soils ph, but no success. The weeds just keep coming and coming.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to try and combat this?
0
Posts
Is it like this Markie ?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_ursinum
It is job to get rid of, just keep digging it out, some people love it, its ok in a wild hedgerow, but I sympathise with you having it in the garden. Keep on with the glysophate.
I think it's likely to be Allium triquetrum - the Three-cornered leek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_triquetrum
http://www.carllegge.com/2014/02/three-cornered-leek-recipes/
It can be a nuisance, but my bet is that if you started cooking with it, began to like it and actually wanted it to grow, it would probably turn up it's toes and die.
Out-psyche it!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
There is also a grass called unsurprisingly Onion grass which looks like grass, but has onion scented bulbous roots. A real thug it is too. The variegated one is often sold, but it reverts to ordinary green and seeds everywhere.Arrhenatherum elitius is one of the names.
Pauline
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you look at and and feel the leaves and they're triangular, they're probably Allium triquetrum - another name is Three-cornered garlic.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It is Allium vineale which is a prolific weed in many parts of Britain. While doing my Certificate in Biology at the University of Bristol I wrote my thesis on it. I had my children help me with the statistics and we found from one plant you can get over 300 new live plants (it exhibits vivipary which means new plants from from the seedheads) plus 12 to 20 new bulbs from the bulb in one season. I tried all ways to eradicate it including different weedkillers, vinegar, hot water, digging it up and trying to find all the little bulbs but the only method i found that did eventually work was to scalp it and the grass round it if in the lawn. Very close mowing is the answer. It needs some green stem to survive so do not let it have any. As for allium triquetrum you have this if the flower stem is triangular. Not quite as invasive as vineale but pretty bad.