Type

Herb · Perennial

Botanical family

Allium (onion family)

Foliage color

Green

Flower color

White

Sunlight

Deep shade through to dappled light suits it.

Watering

Soil that stays reliably moist; you will rarely need to water it at all.

Feeding

A mulch of leaf mold in autumn is feed enough.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

April

Pruning

Nothing to cut back.

Overwintering

Fully hardy; the leaves die away and the bulbs sit dormant until spring.

• Feb–Apr Bud Break
• Apr–May Flowering
• May–Jul Seed Set
• Jul–Dec Dormancy
• Jan–Feb Dormancy

Plant spacing

5.9 in

In-row spacing

5.9 in

Between rows

7.9 in

Square-foot density

4 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 bulbs sit deep enough that a colony survives anything done to the leaves, and it spreads by seed as well, so a damp shaded corner planted once is planted for good.

The habit is Wild Garlic’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.

Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by Pet Poison Helpline.

The Pet Poison Helpline Onions row prints the bare genus Allium, lists Chives, Garlic, Green Onions, Leeks and Shallots among its names, and names dogs and cats. The ASPCA carries Allium at species level only. Cornell carries the genus but names cattle, horses and children.

More about plants and pets

• Lily beetle Lily beetle now and then, since it will try alliums as readily as lilies
• Slugs & snails Slugs on the emerging shoots through a wet spring
• Rust Rust as orange pustules across the leaves — take the affected foliage off

Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. ★ companion plant

• Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  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.

• Centipedes Chilopoda
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.

• Frogs & toads Anura
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.

• Garden birds Passeriformes
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.

  Plant nearby EchinaceaElderberryEnglish hollyGoldenrodRudbeckiaSunflowerTeaselViburnum
• Ground beetle Carabidae
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.

  Plant nearby LavenderMintThyme
• Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.

• Rove beetle Staphylinidae
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  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.

  Plant nearby MintThyme
• Salamanders & newts Caudata
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.

• Snakes & lizards Colubridae & Phrynosomatidae
  Hunts Slugs & snails

  A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.

Bluebells, Ferns, Snowdrops