Trading weeds

Rodger Whitlock totototo@telus.net
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:35:28 PST
On 6 Feb 2013, at 11:32, James Waddick wrote:

>  I expect abuse about this topic. 

None from this direction.

I received, many years ago, seed from the then-ARGS supposed to be Tecophilaea 
cyanocrocus. Being young and naive and unfamiliar with the plant, when it 
germinated I didn't realize that it was no such thing. I allowed it to grow in 
its pot, flower, and seed into all the nearby pots.

Turned out to be that pest of pests, Nothoscordum inodorum. And thanks to re-
use of potting soil, it spread into the garden.

The eradication campaign took ten years of careful digging with a fern trowel 
and a number of kettles of boiling water to destroy offsets near the holes I 
dug.

These days I'm trying to eradicate Allium roseum from commercial bulbs that 
form innumerable bulblets below ground and bulbils in the inflorescences. I 
question if my garden will ever be entirely free of it. (Alliums grow very very 
well in Victoria's climate!)

There is no  universally valid moral to this story, except, perhaps, "beware 
the re-use of potting soil."


-- 
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate



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