How do I get rid of these alliums?

An update on those blooming (literally!) alliums...

Yesterday I spent the best part of 3 hours in one patch of my beds on hands and knees digging up the little blighters. I was very careful to take them out in clumps without shaking off the soil (it's easier before they flower as the leaves are still attached to the bulbs and don't just come away and leave the bulbs behind.) Lots of bugle was disturbed, which I planted the year before last and has spread, and this was replanted in clumps. There are still lots of alliums left, as I have self-seeded foxgloves in abundance which are interspersed with the oniony thugs. I will wait until the foxgloves have finished, save their seeds and then dig them up and try to dig up some more of the alliums.

In another part of the same bed, I have decided to leave the ones growing around the roots of my beautiful Mrs P Woods fuchsia as I think they protect the new growth in early spring but I will make sure I pull out the flowering stalks before they set seed. The rest will be attacked later this week when my back has recovered a bit, trying to avoid digging up the Purple Sensation ones which I love and are not thuggish.

I've been to the Knebworth Flower Show this afternoon and bought Gaura, Lupins, marigolds (to plant around my tomatoes) and a couple of sempervivums.

I will be busy this week!

VB000

MaizieD - found this -

Try these Windows ALT codes for French accent marks by just using your number pad:

Alt+0233 (é)
Alt+0224 (à)
Alt+0232 (è)
Alt+0249 (ù)
Alt+0226 (â)
Alt+0234 (ê)
Alt+0238 (î)
Alt+0244 (ô)

Thanks

MaizieD - found this -

Try these Windows ALT codes for French accent marks by just using your number pad:

Alt+0233 (é)
Alt+0224 (à)
Alt+0232 (è)
Alt+0249 (ù)
Alt+0226 (â)
Alt+0234 (ê)
Alt+0238 (î)
Alt+0244 (ô)

Your garden sounds like mine, GSM. I also have some very handsome, tall, twitch grass, nettles and an unidentified but vigorous weed lurking in the melee. And goose grass (cleavers, sticky jacks) swamping whatever it can

I find that this lessee faire gardening, though very pretty) still requires a significant amount of effort...

(and if anyone can instruct me on how to place accents in French words I'd be grateful ..)

P.S anyone worried about the loss of nettles to nurture butterfly caterpillars, I have plenty more out in my few acres...

Perfect VB000. A lovely colourful jumble of flowers that are happy side by side. Very little maintenance needed, more time to enjoy!

Germanshepherdsmum

That sounds brilliant Norah. The roses are wonderful too this year. All very natural here though - I would never win an award for garden design. Almost everything seeding where it wants is welcome - forgetmenots, alliums, poppies, aquilegias, foxgloves, cow parsley, hardy geraniums, English bluebells, valerian, toadflax, you name it. If it seeds somewhere that means it’s happy there and that’s fine with me.

Sounds lovely - mine is similar, not over-managed. Currently borders are full of self-seeded aquilegias, love-in-the-mist (nigella), foxgloves and a pretty quaking grass. All less to maintain!

I would treat them as I treat Bindweed tease the leaves out then gives the a dab or squirt of glyphosate kills the leaves and roots with very little effort

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-579679-20230601-130913.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-187679-20230601-131230.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-438931-20230601-131134.jpg

It's a lovely mess.

Spread home-made compost around and you'll find tomato plants popping up everywhere.

One year we had a magnificent spaghetti squash plant growing in the vegetable plot but goodness knows where the seed came from.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-44814-20230601-131018-2.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-213768-20230601-130820.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202306/medium-731958-20230601-131044.jpg

Germanshepherdsmum

That sounds brilliant Norah. The roses are wonderful too this year. All very natural here though - I would never win an award for garden design. Almost everything seeding where it wants is welcome - forgetmenots, alliums, poppies, aquilegias, foxgloves, cow parsley, hardy geraniums, English bluebells, valerian, toadflax, you name it. If it seeds somewhere that means it’s happy there and that’s fine with me.

Thank you. It is lovely.

Spring onions ...

Mine's clay but has had a lot of compost added to it, AskAlice

I must say I was disappointed that they hadn't spread. I dont have success with soring onions either.
Yet our chives spread everywhere, in the cracks between slabs is best.

I have had a change of plan! After the little alliums have finished flowering next month I'm going to go in with a vengeance. Dig the whole areas apart from that immediately among the established shrubs and perennials, sieve out all the bulbs and bulblets (is that a proper word?) and only keep the large ones. They are Purple Sensation and I have eight this year, up on the three I had last year. I am determined to get on top of the problem. Callistemon, the soil where all my alliums are growing is quite poor and very stony. I did put a home-made compost mulch on it last year but it was only a very thin layer as most of it goes on my raised veg beds. Maybe you'll get a surprise next year, as I did this year!

Getting back to the alliums - I'm sure there were 7 last year and I can only see 6 this years.
We obviously have the wrong soil for alliums

Not an answer to the alliums post, at all.

However, tomatoes grow particularly well in wild fields. Fruit dropped from the plants provide seeds in the next season. I wander round and tie wild tomato plants to lengths of fallen branches - voila free tomatoes.

Of course, we also grow in pots for enough to last the year.

MaizieD

^The artillery bombardments disturbed the soil. I am not sure how nitrogen from the shells would act as a fertiliser.^

Not nitrogen from the shells, MOnica. Goulish it may be, but corpses make excellent fertiliser...

We saw poppy fields at Gallipoli - remains of soldiers noted as cause.

I am not sure how nitrogen from the shells would act as a fertiliser.
That is the accepted theory anyway.

And, of course, bodies of men and animals

WHY DID SO MANY POPPIES APPEAR DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
www.discoveringbelgium.com/the-poppies-of-flanders

The artillery bombardments disturbed the soil. I am not sure how nitrogen from the shells would act as a fertiliser.

Not nitrogen from the shells, MOnica. Goulish it may be, but corpses make excellent fertiliser...

Poppies prefer disturbed soil. The artillery bombardments disturbed the soil. I am not sure how nitrogen from the shells would act as a fertiliser.

This is why, before weed killers, all our grain fields had poppies in them.

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row

The soil was disturbed and contained plenty of nitrogen from explosives 😥

MaizieD, aha - that explains it!

I think poppies prefer better soil. They used to be rampant in corn fields, which would have had improved soil.

I think most native wildflowers prefer poor soil. My little patch by the back gates had all it's topsoil removed and was left bare. It's just strimmed down and raked in August.

There are ox eye daisies, cornflowers and scarlet pimpernel - but no poppies - not planted by me, maybe old seeds raked to the surface? It was grazing before the houses were built. I was told that poppy seeds survive for over a century underground, germinating when brought to the surface - so why don't we have them here?

What about the regular grazing and manuring by ruminants? The best wild flower meadows are the result of the combination of fower and beats over hundreds of years.

MaizieD I think the idea that 'beautiful wildflower meadows' will materialise if you let nature take over is a work of romantic fiction. They need to be seeded initially and then take lots of work to keep them looking as diverse and beautiful as they did in the first year or two.

Of course a meadow has to be seeded. After building is completed, decent soil is brought in, prepared - compost is worked back into the soil. Clover is over seeded for nitrogen, wild seeds are scattered.

However, apart from the initial easy process - not much remains except to throw more flower and clover seeds as needed.