Horrors in the garden, was Re: Real gardens;
totototo@telus.net (Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:05:34 PST)

On 25 Jan 08, at 12:34, Lee Poulsen wrote:

Since I've been fighting this for a very long time now, perhaps a
report from the battle front will be of interest.

This horror arrived as seed labelled "Leucojum trichophyllum." I know
who contributed and won't name any names, but it was someone who you
would have expected to know better. I've often wondered how many
other gardens were similarly infested.

It was pretty clear after a year or two that whatever I had wasn't
Leucojum trichophyllum; the leaves were definitely not hairlike. When
this monster first flowered I thought, oh, that's not so bad. Little
did I know.

After flowering, it set copious seed which fell into circumjacent
pots in the coldframe.

Enlightenment arrived in the form of a diatribe by a local friend who
was lamenting that he'd been digging his up and putting it in the
compost, not realizing all this did was spread it around. Uh oh.

Once I realized what I had, I began to watch for the flowers. They're
quite distinctive and, frankly, not *that* attractive. When a bulb
flowered, I'd carefully lift it and then pour a kettle of boiling
water into the hole in order to cook any stray bulblets. Nothscordum
inodorum not only sets copious seed, but also an infinity of bulblets
underground (much like a frit rice grains) -- and these bulblets are
the size, shape, and color of apple seeds, so they are very difficult
to find and remove.

I'm not exactly sure when this monster arrived here, but it was
around 1990, perhaps a little earlier.

At present I believe my garden is free of it, but I continue to keep
a close watch both for the flowers and for the rather distinctive
keeled leaves.

Allium roseum is now the pest du jour.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate

on beautiful Vancouver Island