Onion Weed in my lawn

[Dan77]

Hi all ,

I live in Brisbane Australia and have a small(bigger than I like) issue with Onion Weed through my lawn.
I have tried individually painting the leaves of this annoying weed with detergent mixed with glyphophosphate and also using a weed and feed style treatment. It works for a month or so but then this very hardy weed grows back even more. I have also tried digging the bulb like weed out by hand but that is tedious and incredibly time consuming. I had one site recommend that I change the pH of my soil to starve the Onion Weed, but that will also starve my lawn. My couch lawn looks great after I mow but a day or so later the onion weed grows a lot quicker and then it looks like my lawn has weeds all through it... Which it does !

Any ideas people ?
Thanks in advance....Dan

[evtubbergh]

Thanks for identifying the little bulbs that keep growing in my garden They come from the mondo grass we planted.

You can keep cutting them to ground level. Without leaves the bulbs will not be able to store food and flowers can't create seeds. You will have to be diligent and patient though.

[rainbowgardener]

I didn't answer before, because you wouldn't like my response - the only thing I know to do about wild onions is just keep digging them out. You have to dig down deep to get the bulb. If you dig a whole clump out, fill the hole in with new soil and plant grass seed in the spot, then you have eliminated the problem in that spot. Depends on how much lawn you have and how serious the problem is (proportion of wild onion to actual lawn), whether that is even feasible. I just make it a work on a little at a time project. The wild onions are of course edible just like regular ones and work well for green onions.

[applestar]

I go around cutting the taller-than-lawn grass clumps of what I think of as wild garlic with a hand sickle and use the dark green-rich material as mulch -- usually for more acid loving plants or (hopefully) as pest repellent. I usually have enough culinary onion and garlic greens all year so I won't bother to eat them, but I think they have a more grassy flavor to them.