Re: Weedy Nectaroscordium species in Calif?
- Subject: Re: Weedy Nectaroscordium species in Calif?
- From: T* &* M* R*
- Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 11:27:46 +1200
John MacGregor wrote:
>
> In my 30-year-plus experience with this pestilence, there is no chemical
> that works against Nothoscordum. Years ago, I even tried undiluted Roundup
> dripped into the center of the plant with an eyedropper, but this only
> killed the foliage. in a few months, it came back more luxuriantly than
> ever from the bulbs.
>
John
I must second your experience. Not that I have it in my own garden.
thank goodness, but I struck it in the property of someone I once worked
for, who apparently acquired the first bulbs when a neighbourhood stream
flooded.
Incidently, I was horrified when one year the British Alpine Garden
Society actually offered the seed in its list and wrote them a
strongly-worded protest. Goodness knows what they were thinking of!
I would say the major factor in its persistance is the tiny wheat-grain
bulbils which always cluster round the mother bulb, though doubtless it
also colonises by seed if this is not controlled. I don't think trying
to sort the bulbils out of the soil is ever effective. My method was to
dig up each plant with a good handful of surrounding dirt in the hopes
of getting every one of the tinies and put the whole thing straight in
the garbage. By this means we at least kept the wretched pest from being
more than a casual, but ever-irritating nuisence, rather than a
full-fledged enemy.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand, SW Pacific. 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Time
