Technically, in my area in Maryland, they are called wild garlic. Not that a change of name makes them any better. I hand pull the bulb out after rain using a weeder or a shovel.

Hand digging them out - and you have to get the entire bulb - is the only thing that works. Sometimes as Jake mentioned, you can pull them but in dry weather, I use a very long sharp trowel to get the entire plant out. Otherwise, they'll be back!

I have a weed puller I bought from Lehman's that is the best thing I have found to get all of the bulblets. You can use it standing up, (easy on the knees).

The bottom is a "claw", and there is a foot lever that you step on. you can move the entire thing back and forth if necessary to loosen all the bulbs. If you leave one little piece, it grows back.
kay

It seems like for me the best time to pull them out is when they've gotten big enough for the bulblets to be about the side of a nickel. They seem to get tough and when the ground's soft after a really good rain you can pull the bulb out of the ground. Most people don't want to look at them that long though....

I feel your pain! I agree with everyone else, hand digging is the only way. The Round-up type weed killers just don't do the job, even with a spreader sticker added to the mix. So today I spent the past 3-4 hours digging out the monsters in about 1/3 of my beds. More will find themselves being dug out this weekend. Good luck with yours.

Kim

I try to pull them up also, but sometimes just end up taking the top off. That means they will be back. I have some daylilies that the wild onion is growing in the middle of, so in those cases, I guess I will have to dig up the whole clump to separate the good from the bad.

I am out every day now walking the garden to pull weeds to keep them under control. But I don't mind, I just love being out there!

Vickie

I both dig and pull. I try to pull them up sometimes when I am too lazy to go get the trowel. That only works sometimes as often the bulbs do not come up with just the folliage broken off. Of course that means they come back. Only sure way is to did, dig, dig.

Wow, do you mean that the BRUSH KILLER ROUNDUP won't kill the things? and I spent a couple hours outside spraying them.GHEEZ.

Jean

I don't know about the brush killer roundup, but regular roundup & weed killers that claim they kill them don't. Even pulling when they will pull up doesn't necessarily work. Often they have tiny bulblets attached & you can pull the whole onion up but leave some of those little bulblets :(

Amine 400 2,4-d will kill them and although it may twist your daylilies some it will NOT kill them..I have used this for over 10 years with great success. I suppose the less volitale LV 400 2,4-d will as well..It does take some time though.Amine and LV both have about a 10 day half life so any twisting or contortion of your daylilies will go away after that time..Do NOT spray in and around daylilies with either if they are in the bud stage or later as it will cause bud fall off..If you can sheild your plants and not contact during bloom it would be best or just wait till after bloom and over the top the whole area..That's usually what I do..Hope this helps. David.

Thanks to all who responded. I am going to use a combination of weed killer + weed puller. I'll post the results. Thanks again.

I think this must be the year for wild garlic. We have it suddenly everywhere this spring. We are also dodging sweet gum balls all over the place. I've lived here 20 years and have seen very few of them before. I wonder if it's a result of our 4 months without rain last year.

Nancy

At this time of year I am out there everyday pulling/digging the wild onions. Later in the year they die down. But I don't think I will ever get totally rid of them no matter how hard I try.

Can someone post a picture of what these look like? I have something growing that I have never seen and wonder if it's them.

Are onions the weed that grows extremely long/tall? I had this in my daylilly patch last year and at first I thought it they were coming from the dl's (first time planter) until I found them in other areas. For some reason in the DL area this weed grows very long (I guess from compost I put in this area). My other problem is that my neighbor has a wild garden and her plants are invasive. Anything you plant would die from Round Up except the plants that come into my yard from her yard. You have to pull them. I'm going to try Round Up Brush Killer on the onions/plants and see if they work. This form of round up, in my opinion works better than the regular type.

Many, many eons ago I worked in the sales office of a large wholesale-only greenhouse operation. The grower/horticulturist always was saying "weeds are only misplaced plants". Maybe so, but dang, I sure hate those plants that don't know their place, don't you? LOL

Mary

I use my plugger to kill wild onions, wild garlic and dandelions without using weed killers or herbicides. Don't have to get a backache either.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plugger

William Carney,

I would never buy from someone with unethical business practices like you are exhibiting. As the owner of your company, Globe Franchise dba ProPlugger, you signed up for Gardenweb just to post SPAM in our forums and knowing that you planned to disregard Gardenweb's TOS. You promised not to post SPAM when you signed up just yesterday, but then did it anyway. Hopefully, your unethical business practices will not lead to profit for you!

I wouldn't use your product for this purpose anyway. Wild garlic/onions are often present in larger clumps than your fancy, overpriced bulb digger will handle. What do you think that monster is going to do to our daylily roots? Better to just wait until the soil is moist and pull the plants up, leaving the soil. Again, shame on you and your ripoff business for your disrespect of this website!

Just saw this post. The previous owner planted them in a bed to ward off deer and rabbits from eating the other plants. It seems to work, but they do multiply fast.

My apologies. To be honest, I'm not sure I read GW
s "TOS" when I signed up. My bad.

As for the presentation of wild onions & garlic, I agree. If the plants have been growing in place for several years, they do get rather spread out and may require more than one plug. I'll sometimes wait a week after plugging a larger plant to see if I left any fragments of the bulb underground, then clean up whatever I may have left. Doesn't take long for these aggressive growing "weeds" to send up shoots.

The plugger is really not that fancy, although it does work good (I may be a little biased :-)

Again, I apologize for the posting.