Re: Weed Control for Impossibles - Nothoscordum inodorum

R Starkeson wrote:
> David, Is Nothoscordum inodorum an onion-like bulb?  I have seen a
> lot of what looks like a wild-onion, that comes up in the spring, and
> spreads rapidly - hard to get rid of.  But unlike the name
> "inodorum" of Nothoscordum inodorum, when the leaves are cut, this
> smells strongly and exactly like scallions (green onions).  Looking
> for images of Nothoscordum on Gogle produced a lot of other species,
> but only one poor one of N.inodorum.

Richard
This sound more like Allium triquetrum which is a vigorous spreader has a marked onion odour and can be used in cooking.

It is quite a pretty plant with a spray of bell-shaped white flowers but
its colonizing habits make it a liability in any garden. It is all to
common here and when I was doing garden maintenance work I quite
frequently had to get rid of it.

After some experimenting I found a successful way to defeat it. Spraying
was well-nigh useless as it more often than not simply killed the tops
and the bulbs would sprout again the following year. Digging out dormant bulbs is likewise a thankless task.

The secret seems to be dealing with the plant when in full bloom. At
that time the bulb is drawn on heavily to produce the year's growth and
reduced almost to nothing, making the plants very easy to pull. I found
it best to grasp them in clumps rather than taking them out individually
and in this way could virtually get rid of even a pretty serious
infestation in one go. Given a second year to round up stragglers and seedlings and I never had any more trouble.

As to the Notoscordium. This is much less common here, but I did battle
it in one garden where it had arrived when the stream at the bottom of
the property flooded one year.

The main problem with this bulb is the mass of tiny wheatgrain offshoots which form around the base of the parent bulb, much after the manner of some Oxalis species. Any one of these left behind is potential trouble. The lady who owned the garden liked to refer to it as the "toad plant" because of its bad habits and insisted I always removed its bulbs with enough soil to ensure those nasty little tinies were safely enclosed and all came out with the main bulb. This seemed locally effective and we had few cases of any regrowth in the same place, but new plants in different places continued to occur sporadically.

Curiously, having never seen it in my own patch previously, I recently spotted a bulb in flower in my shrubbery which looks uncommonly like this species, but have not and any chance yet to investigate. However I mean to get on to it soon before it has any chance to set seed.

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ.     Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004

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