I want them gone.

10 years ago

I have built large gardens over the years, and have fought Sassafras, choke cherries, poison ivy and other Grrrrr things.

In the last couple of years, the wild onions have taken over. Interestingly enough, several different kinds. The big onions, almost the size of a pearl onion, I just pull up. But there are millions. There are these smaller onions that grow in these lovely grass-like clumps. They're about the size of a pea.

That said, my garden beds are looking like they're full of grass. They grow up through other plants, etc. If I grab a clump and am luckily enough to get them to leave the soil, the clump of pea-sized onions is about as big as a softball.

No, don't waste all of our time suggesting I cook with them.
1) I don't cook
2) I'd have 6 acres of onions.
Suggesting I "just" pull them up is not helpful, either.
1) it would be like trying to pull up a lawn by hand
2) it leaves onions still in the soil.

So......
How do you kill bulbs! I know Round-up doesn't phase them. I don't care about the ones growing in the grass. It's the ones that are in the beds -- where the grass used to be. Yup. They were there first. But then, so was the PI and we all know how most of us feel about that.

Suggestions? I really want to kill them. I have a spring batch, and some kind that return full force in the fall.

WWYD?

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Comments (3)

posierosie_zone7a
10 years ago
I dig out by the root anything that invades my garden bed. However, I don't always have time for that so my second option is to just rip out the foliage. Do that enough, the plant dies.

Question - do you mulch? I understand that these do seed and if you have a thick layer of mulch, it makes volunteers much less likely. Maybe won't help your current situation, but should help keep it from getting worse.

I don't have any chemical ideas, but maybe someone does. You might want to cross reference the lawn forum and the allium forums. They might be more appropriate.
User
10 years ago
a broadleaf herbicide containing trichlopyr should do the job. You may have to repeat the spraying next season. Cover existing plants and touch weed with a weedwiper or glove (I use the 'sock of death') ...or lift precious plants, pot on temporarily or heel them in a spare bit of soil and blast the allium pests with liquid napalm...or whatever chemical herbicide would normally cause you ro shudder in horror. Sometimes, we have to be tyrants.

Sympathies (that awful whiffy reeksome stench).
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CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you both for getting back to me.

1) Yes, I mulch. To the tune of truck loads of wood chips from a tree trimming company each year. That's only so successful against anything, because after a while (as in this year again) weeds just grow on the mulch.
Introducing Round-Up, as soon as its above 50F. Besides. Like ditch lilies, tulips or daffodils, they don't care about mulch or how thick it is. They just poke their spiky little green heads up through the mulch.

2) You must have some wimpy weeds/bulbs things at your house. I've been ripping off the foliage for 13 years and it doesn't phase them at all. All it does do is not let them flower -- which is a bonus, I guess.

3) I'll look for trichlopyr. Round-up is gly-something and does a decent job, but in the face of bulbs? The bulbs laugh. LAUGH, I SAY! Do you have a favorite brand?

I'm not adverse to chemicals when used (No, I'm not going to say "according to direction") with their dangers in mind. For example, Round-Up kills amphibian life. Can't hurt my toads and frogs, right? I just recently had to give in to a systemic chemical for boring bugs. I've planted over 125 trees in 13 years and refuse to lose them to bugs chewing them up from the inside out. No. We went with the big, Bayer guns.

Ok. Some ideas. I'll continue to do my annual, 3-acre mulching job, pulling off the foliage as I go. Doesn't do any good, but it makes me feel like I'm at least insulting the onions.
Get a sock and trichlopyr.
Visit the Allium board. Maybe lawn care. Those people can be freaky about everything that's not a blade of grass. I'm a clover kinda chick, myself.

Thanks again for writing.
Christine