A.Malhotra wrote:

swroot wrote:

A.Malhotra wrote:

swroot wrote:

Michael wrote:

Help! I am being overrun by hundreds of grape hyacinths. I cannot
get rid of them by seperating them from the soil as it is lumpy clay.
Systemic weedkiller didn't do much to them. They are speading and
growing lots of new bulbs. Can anyone please tell me how I can destroy
them.

I had that problem once. They make good compost: show them no mercy!

Yes, they're a gorgeous blue. But if they like your garden, what starts
as a scattering of gorgeous blue flowers in spring becomes a solid mat
of bulbs and juicy green leaves smothering everything else in the garden
later in the year. To add insult to injury, nothing eats them, not
slugs, not snails, not mice, *nothing*!


Why not just cut the leaves off. Don't they die backlater in the year
anyway?

After they've smothered everything, yes. Cutting the leaves off defeats
the purpose of having the bulbs, as if they don't feed they won't flower
the next year.


If you kept cutting them off year after year would it kill them? Just that
the original poster was looking for ways of getting rif of them without
digging them up?

I think the bulbs would send up new leaves after the trim, so one would
have to keep cutting the leaves through the growing season, every year.
In theory this would kill them, but not until the bulb was exhausted (it
might outlast the gardener). If it's chalky clay it's almost as good as
lime in the compost heap, so just add bulbs and adherent soil.

regards
sarah


--
"Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view,
is silence about truth." Aldous Huxley