I wonder if putting some grit around the bottom of the ramps will do it. I've not tried it with alliums but I have to do it when planting other bulbs like tulips so the rodent digging crew doesn't tear them all up.

I have drumstick alliums all over the place, mostly bought on impulse at places like Christmas Tree Shops. The only problem I've had with them is that one year I've got a nice clump of blooming plants and the next year it looks like grass - lots more leaves, in an ever-widening patch, and not quite so many flowers. I'm not sure if they're self-sowing or dividing, and I keep meaning to look up what DiSabato-Aust has to say about them (or maybe I already checked The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, and mum's the word on Alliums - that seems likely...) Maybe this is a zone difference, since we're in 7 here; or maybe it's a drainage issue? My garden's fairly sandy, so anything that likes well-drained loam is mostly happy in most areas of my garden. I haven't had too much luck with the big globe-like alliums, but I do have a few that have returned for several years - no idea where they came from, what variety they are, or when I planted them; they're in an inconspicuous spot in what used to be a vegetable garden. They certainly haven't spread or increased the way the drumsticks have! I do love to interplant alliums with hellebores, since swaths of hellebore foliage looks kind of boring in the summers.

Hi, jsevinsk. Just doing some follow-up and came across your inquiry about how my Ambassador pool is doing. So you bought the same pool that I have, the 15x30. Assuming that it also has the wraparound promenade deck and fantail deck at one end. Well, this was my 2nd summer with the pool now. The operation of the pool itself was great all summer. Opened Memorial Day weekend, and we swam thru Labor Day, with a couple more quick dips through September. I am in the process of closing up the pool now for the winter. I'd be interested to hear about your experience with having the pool installed, and what you received from Ambassador in the way of paperwork and accessories. We ran into a bit of a problem with town hall and the permitting process. According to our town hall, it is illegal for Ambassador to sell a pool in Massachusetts with just that fold-up ladder attaching to the deck. State code says that this entrance to the pool is required to be fenced in with an auto-locking gate. Well, 4 months after we had the pool installed, we ended up expanding our deck over to the pool deck and eliminated that fold-up ladder altogether. My first pool closing last fall/winter turned out to be quite a learning experience. The winter cover we got from Ambassador was a 15x30 cover, and it didn't take into account the 15" wraparound deck and uprights that support the fence. It barely reached to the wraparound decking, and that prevented the cover from properly resting on the surface of the water and then draping over the side of the pool. And that was another problem. With the decking and uprights, you couldn't ideally secure the cover to the pool, like you could with an AG pool without a deck attached. We ended up buying an 18x33 cover, so the cover would rest properly on the surface of the water and extend onto the decking. However, securing the cover was still a problem due to the decking and uprights. There is no gap between the sidewall of the pool and the decking. So you cannot get a cover to drape down and secure to the outside wall of the pool. And with the uprights that go all around the pool, you cannot drape the cover over the wraparound deck, either. I originally had the cover cable winding around all of those uprights. But I came to realize that that is probably not a good way to do it because heavy snow might put a strain on the cable and possibly cause the uprights to bend. Well, I went with that for the fall, but realized that the wind had no problem getting under the cover and flapping it like a spinaker sail. I tried laying down those blue water bags all aroudn the deck to keep the cover down. Still, the wind could get underneath. The water bags would get knocked off the decking and hang down aroudn the uprights. Many of them developed leaks. I strung rope all across the pool in an effort to keep the cover from blowing so much. I did much on-line research on how best to secure my pool cover with the decking like it is. Found nothing. I really didn't want to place huge rocks or cinder blocks or other very heavy items all around the deck to secure the cover because they might have put undue stress on the decking. So I will try a combination of things this fall/winter, taking into account what I learned from last winter. One other big problem I ran into was with the liner. To facilitate closing and opening without draining water, I replaced the skimmer plate with a new one called Lid'l Seal. It's a new skimmer faceplate that comes with a tupperware-like cover that you snap into place to cover up the opening. Then, you drain your hoses and there is no water getting into the skimmer compartment that could freeze up in winter and damage the compartment. I put the new faceplate on in the fall, but soon realized that when you do such a thing, you have to replace the gasket that goes around the skimmer opening on either side of the liner. I blew that off until the spring and just let the water seep out of the pool until the surface was just below the bottom of the skimmer opening. Come May, I was preparing to repace the gaskets. You have to take off the faceplate again, and apply silicone sealant to the gaskets and affix them to the liner and then screw the faceplate back into place. That effort almost cost me the price of replacing the entire liner. WHO KNEW?? The water was jsut below the bottom of the skimmer. I unscrewed the faceplate. And the liner began to pull away from around the opening. It was impossible to get the liner back in place to line up the screw holes and get the faceplate screwed back in. Called family/friends with pools for suggestions. NAMCO, etc suggested draining soem water to get some play on the liner. Ultimately, I had to drain ALL of the water from the pool. Warming the liner with a hair dryer didn't help much either. I got "some" stretch to the liner, but not enough, and even if I had 2-3 people helping me to stretch the liner in place, their hads would have all been in the way and prevented me from screwing in the faceplate. Just as I was about to proceed with a pool store's suggestion of affixing a huge liner patch and then cutting out the hole for the skimmer, I got an 80 degree sunny day that had the liner sagging all around in the heat. I was able to get the requisite stretch to the liner without having it pull away, and I managed to get the faceplate screwed back on. Wasn't 100% certain if that last screw lined up perfect with the hole in the edge of the liner there, but I went thru the season without losing water, so I must have gotten it well enough. UGH! That first year was quite the learning experience! But the pool itself is nice. In another year or so, we'll get rid of the fantail deck and expand the wood deck some more.

Hi: Later last year I got my hands on some ramps, have never had any, and put them in a self watering container (SWC) that's 16" tall, and in a cool, shady area, using left over DIY blueberry container soil (1 part G&B premium potting mix, 1 part pine mulch, 1 part peat moss, 1 or 2 parts perlite until it drained well). I topped it with whatever bark mulch was in my yard. They have not been fertilized at all. The plan has been to move them indoors if the temps exceed 80F here in coastal so cal, zone 10a. I've read one should wait at least a year before any harvest. Early spring some small leaves sprouted, I tasted one snippet and it was interesting, super potent garlic/green onion aftertaste. Sadly, slugs discovered the SWC and ate the leaves! Discouraged, I've left it alone going on two months. The SWC has remained moist without topping up or watering. Given this, I thought they might've rotted or something, but I just dug one up and it looks alive. So, what now? Scrap the project, or leave them in the SWC? If the latter, then do I keep the soil moist, or let it dry out here and there? Fertilize? Flush with water? Thanks for your time!