Egyptian Walking Onion
Allium × proliferum
Sets its bulbils at the top of the stalk, which bends over and roots them — hence the walking.
- Type
- Vegetable · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Allium (onion family)
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- Bulbs & roots
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Mar–Mar Emergence
- Mar–Apr Active Growth
- Apr–Jun Harvest
- Jun–Nov Flowering
- Nov–Dec Dormancy
- Jan–Mar Dormancy
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 11.8 in
- Between rows
- 17.7 in
- Square-foot density
- 1 per square
- Root system
- A bulb with fine roots beneath it
- Working depth
- 4–10 in
- Can reach
- 16 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 6–12 in across, about 0.5–1× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
Roots thread down from the base plate each season and are shed each season, and they go no further out than the leaves. Everything the bulb will store for next year is gathered in that narrow circle before the foliage yellows, which is why cutting the leaves early costs a flower.
The habit is Egyptian Walking Onion’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by Pet Poison Helpline.
The source states that all Alliums are poisonous to dogs and cats, which is a claim that takes in our Allium x proliferum. The ASPCA has species rows for Garlic, Leek, Onion and Chives, but none for this one.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Onion fly & leek moth
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Onion fly & leek moth
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
Carrots, Strawberries, Chamomile, Beets
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com