Wild garlic bulbs?

[stickydough]

I just received some wild garlic bulbs which have travelled well, advice from seller is to leave them in water for a couple of hrs then plant out. I have just checked the forecast and frost due tonight, but then temps higher for the next 10 days. Think I should keep them inside for the night? Maybe pot them temporarily? Obviously established plants tolerate frost but I’m wondering if I’ll just kill them by putting them out tonight.

Just leave them in water overnight and plant out after the frost has gone tomorrow. Great timing!

Be careful. They are quite invasive

The flowers are pretty but it is a garden thug. We have a little patch of woodland and the garlic runs rampant. It chokes out bluebells and pretty much everything else.

So invasive, my lawn is full of them despite digging up regularly. I wish frost would kill them.

I love them, they smell amazing. I'm an idiot though and planted them next to lily of the valley (another garden thug) so I don't use them in cooking because I don't want to accidentally poison anyone. I love wild garlic salad.

It has taken me years to get rid of them in my garden and I still spot the odd one which has either come in from elsewhere or was a tiny bulb that I missed.

Yum yum

Oh lord, you'll never get rid of them put them in a pot!

Ah thanks for all the input. Great, I’ve got them in water and will get them out tomorrow. Not sure if they’ll take for this year now or not. Yes I know they run riot but I have a perfect little shady hilly bit. Our garden is a fairly wild one and where they grow in our local park, it’s quite a small contained area, they don’t seem to spread there. So I’d love our own as we love to cook with it, don’t want to take too much from the park.

I also got a wild Elder at the same time and haven’t decided where to put that…

Don’t plant them! They are highly invasive and are so damaging to native species.

Are they usable in cooking like the ones I usually buy? I have a neglected corner for something different.

Wild garlic is a native species.

It isn’t. It’s Mediterranean.

I’ve never seen it in the shops. Usually grows in shady woodland near water, lush green pointed leaves and later pretty white clusters of flowers. So not sure if that’s what you usually buy but yes lovely in scones, pesto, butter…

Then you’d better advise the RHS that their website is incorrect.

Plant them in a massive pots.

You're thinking of 3 cornered leek. Wild garlic is native!

I have a carpet of them in my garden. They're really pretty and the leaves make great pesto and garlic butter

The leaves are (before the flowers appear) but not the bulbs as far as I know

I second the advice about it being invasive. My local woods are like the battlefield of two vast armies in the spring - wild garlic versus bluebells, squared up to each other with massive density.

And they aren't all that lovely (except for making the woods smell like dinner). Unattractive leaves and brief spindly flowers. In the woods they look fabulous because they are such a huge expanse of white, conquering everything except the bluebells' expanse of blue. But I wouldn't want them in my garden.

I want them! I think they are pretty, I love the smell, and they will be useful to me. I think they will be possible to contain to the area I have which is kind of cut off from the rest of the garden.

It'll take a good few years before it slightly takes over. I planted some 5 years ago and it's spread enough to make a small crop. Still not enough for pesto, hopefully a couple of stir fry dishes and scones.

It can somewhat take over, but it only lasts a few weeks. Other species will pop up after. I have it mixed in a wild couple of sqm with honesty, cow parsley, knapweed and lucerne (also green alkanet when I don't remove it fast enough, my enemy plant). They all take their turn.

Thanks, that’s helpful to know, and keep my expectations low! I dotted clumps about the little slope and now thinking I should have done them all close together but never mind, let’s see. Theres a lot of ivy in that area so it may win. I also found some wild garlic seed that I thought I’d lost, so I might scatter some of those in the autumn. I put one clump in a pot as a bit of an experiment.

Is it wild garlic (Allium ursinum) or Three cornered leek? (Allium triquetrum) Both are invasive. Allium ursinum is a native A. triquetrum is not and a schedule 9 invasive which you mustn't allow to spread beyond your garden.