On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:14:17 +0100, The Night Tripper
wrote:

Hi All
our garden has very many 'uninvited' alliums - almost rampant with them.
I don't know the actual species, they have very green fleshy stems with
snowdrop-like white flowers. They are starting to grow into the lawn now and
if we don't get a grip I think they will take over...

Luckily they are easily either pulled up (bulbs and all, if the ground is
wet), or the above-ground growth hoed and then collected. I've therefore
ended up with a decent pile of green material from these plants.

I run a few compost bins and I'd like to compost this stuff - if nothing
else to keep all the goodness that these blighters have taken out of the
soil! But I'm concerned that I might end up spreading uncomposted bulbs
around the rest of the garden when I spread the compost around in future
years.

Is this a real risk, and is there anything in particular I can do to avoid
the risk?

Other suggestions for ridding the garden of these blighters very welcome...

Cheers
Jon N

As to what you pull up, compost the leafy stuff but black bag the
bulbs - they'll survive all but the hottest compost piles. But pulling
may not be enough - alliums, like other little-bulbed things such as
muscari and crocosmia, spread like wildfire by throwing out little
bulblets. When you pull, there's a better than evens chance that
you'll pull only the main bulb to which the leaves you're pulling are
attached; the little bulblets will easily pull off under the soil.And
if you're pulling by the handful, you'll leave a fair few main bulbs
underground without realising. If you want to eradicate, it's better
to use a fork to dig them up.

I planted about 20 crocosmia in the garden 20 years ago. Still trying
to get rid of them! Managed to beat alliums eventually and this year
will be glyphosating the muscari!

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the asylum formerly known as the
dry end of Swansea Bay.