Thread: Wild Onions
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Old April 25, 2009   #5
habitat_gardener
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: California Central Valley
Posts: 2,540
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Did your research turn up a botanical name? Probably there are tons of varieties of "wild onions." If you have any doubts at all about its invasiveness, you could try it in a container. You could also call your local ag extension and ask about weedy alliums.

The horrible invasive one around here is Nothoscordum inodorum, which does not have an oniony odor but has pretty little white flowers. It propagates itself by dropping lots and lots of little bulblets into the soil when you try to pull it out. It's also classified as a "noxious weed" by the state. I've successfully gotten rid of a small patch of it by diligently weeding every time I passed by that patch of ground for a month or two, and rooting around for as many bulblets as I could find.

A weedy one around here that does smell like onion/garlic could be Allium triquetrum, which is edible.

My community garden plot has lots of green onions or spring onions (the green parts are used), which have persisted from who knows how many previous gardeners. They come up between lavenders and in the middle of spring bulbs, and every so often I dig them up and either give them away or divide them and plant elsewhere. I pulled up a bunch that was crowding the lavender a couple weeks ago and gave them to some passers-by, who were delighted to get them. When they get rust, I cut them down. They come back with no care, so I almost always have green onions on the rare occasions when I want them. Like most bulbs, they do better if divided occasionally.

I also grow garlic chives, which have a flat leaf that has a pronounced garlic flavor and white flowers, and regular chives, which have purple flowers. The garlic chives produce a prodigious amount of seed, but after about 3 years, they are very slowly expanding, hemmed in by oregano, yarrow, and globe gilia. The regular chives are in a 2-gallon container (still haven't found the right place for them in the 3 years I've had them) and have politely and discreetly reseeded themselves here and there.
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