Ipheons also have grassy-like foliage similar to some small alliums. Allium unifolium leaves look exactly the same as the Ipheons, except they get taller. The Ipheons foliage only gets about 3 inches high, but the unifoliums grow to about 7 inches. This flattish grass foliage on both the ipheons and alliums curves downward somewhat from the top and they both eventually make some pretty thick clumps of this grass. It can be impossible to tell the difference at first. Other alliums have a more upright oniony look, and some of course, produce a quite strappy wide foliage. My guess is that you could smell a difference between the ipheons and the alliums if you handled the foliage.

I get a lot of compost volunteers too. Our compost is wonderful, so i am not sure why the heat does not kill the seeds. In any case, it doesn't, but since as i said the compost looks, smells, feels so good, we do not worry about it. Yes, we have heaps of worms in the compost, and the effect of adding compost to anything we grow is pretty clear (good!) What I do with volunteers depends on what I get. If they are squash, they will be mongrels (either f1, f2, or some combination of C pepos). If they are not C. pepo, then they are C. moschata, we only grew butternut last year, and our best specimens were compost pile volunteers! Every time we have allowed them to grow and fruit, we have been very impressed with the disease resistance, vigor, production, and flavor of the fruit. So we keep all the squash. If they are cantaloupe melons, we also keep them because we have been impressed with their flavor in the past. I would yank out and toss the watermelons though, simply because any seed would be from last year variety, which i do not want to grow again (watermelon is in its own species so it will not cross unless you plant different watermelon varieties). If I get potato seedlings, I transfer them to my 'impure' potato patch. I have two patches, in one goes everything (potatoes that sprout from the store or the compost) in the other, only certified seed potatoes, and a lot of care is taken to not 'contaminate' that patch. Needless to say, the potato patch with 'everything' does a lot better and produces like crazy. Go figure. If they are tomatoes I yank them out, break them, and toss them back in the compost heap. Volunteer tomatoes we have grown in the past really sucked. Your experience might differ, and we did try it and grew them once. Never again for us. I also get volunteer red amaranth, which I allow to live and feed me salads and greens in the summer, while delighting us with the red splashes all over the garden. Onions we keep too, plant them near the roses. Most of my onions are sprouted from the grocery store, ditto for the garlic. I do plant some starts and seeds as well.

Very few tree seedlings can survive mowing. While I don't know water oaks specifically, I get 50,000 maple seedlings on an acre a year, and they're always gone by the third mowing.

Thanks for the report, Randy. I noticed my Swamp mw up, but the A. viridis and A. asperula are just nubs at the surface. Mine is a lil slower than yours. I do have overwintered trop. mw putting on new leaves, for them to lay their eggs on. One of my "Hairy Balls" that I overwintered in the garage made it, and is putting on new leaves!!! The smaller one, bit the dirt.