Garlic Chives

Weather: The only plants that likes this combination of cool mornings and hot afternoons are the roses. The Doctor Huey rootstock is prospering everywhere. Seeds either haven’t come up because of the cold, or stopped with their first leaves because of the heat. Cool loving flowers like lilacs had truncated blooming periods, while leaves on the warm season daylilies are losing color if they’re in sun.

We had rain a week ago Monday and Tuesday; the ground was dry at least two inches down where I was working last Sunday. All the humidity in the air is coming from the river, ground, and plants.

Last rain: 5/22. Week’s low: 36 degrees F. Week’s high: 91 degrees F.

What’s blooming in the area: Catalpa, yellow and pink species roses, Dr. Huey and hybrid roses, privet, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, daylilies, red hot poker, red-tipped yucca, Jupiter’s beard, snow-in-summer, purple salvia, datura, sweet pea, oriental poppy, pink evening primroses, dark purple larkspur, yellow yarrow

What’s blooming in my yard: Rugosa and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, beauty bush peaked, cultivated tamarix, chives, peony, Bath pinks, Maltese cross, coral bells, golden spur columbine, foxglove and smooth beards tongues, Johnson Blue geranium, catmints, Romanian sage, winecup mallow, blue flax, Shasta daisy, Ozark coneflower, white yarrow, chocolate flowers, coreopsis, blanket flower

What’s blooming outside the walls and fences: Apache plume, alfilerillo, purple mat flower, white tufted evening primroses, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, bindweed, silver leaf nightshade, greenleaf five eyes, fern leaf globemallow, showy milkweed, scurf pea, alfalfa, wild licorice, tumble mustard, fleabane, common and native dandelions, goat’s beard, plain’s paper flower, golden hairy and strap leaf asters, Tahoka daisy; brome, cheat, and purple three-awn grasses

What’s coming up: watermelons planted 9 May; Canary Bird zinnias, Crackerjack marigolds, and California poppies planted 18 May

Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, pansies, violas; local petunias

Tasks: One person cut his hay; another who is not irrigating this year burned areas along his fences.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbird, small brown birds, geckos, sidewalk ants, hornets more common than small bees, a few bumble bees, other small flying insects, earthworms where I’ve been weeding; heard crickets

When I was working Friday morning the bird on the overhead utility line started making more noise than usual. I though it odd, since I’d been out for at least half an hour. When I went around to the front of the house I startled the neighbor’s cat who apparently comes over when the young kids get too rambunctious.

Weekly update: Garlic chives serve many purposes, beyond the culinary. As I mentioned in a post years ago, they can be an effective ground cover because the leaves only get about 8" high and curve like grass. More important, they perpetuate themselves by reseeding, which they did in the shade under the black locust.

Of course, anything that can successfully reseed has the potential to become a problem. The locust stand is above the retaining wall, and the heavy seeds blow down into the bed below which is reserved for pinks and snows-in-summer. They fall between the matted stems, and come up between the desired plants, often close to the roots.

Each summer I weed that bed twice, taking out the garlic chives, winecup mallows, hollyhocks, and golden spur columbine that have invaded. I’m never very successful because they all have deep roots I can’t dig out without destroying the plants around them.

I didn’t do any weeding last summer, and the garlic chives took over. There were areas where nothing else was growing. A couple weeks ago, I used the spade to dig out what I could safely. That loosened dirt around other plants that I clawed out with my right hand.

I basically used the muscles in my forearm and back, but I still thought I can’t keep doing this. I tried to visualize the ideal tool. Forked dandelion sticks and narrow weeders never worked for me because they were too cumbersome. I have a heavy cast aluminum narrow trowel, but even it’s too wide to be unintrusive.

I had a vision of something like a wood chisel when I went to the local hardware store for inspiration. The first place I went didn’t have single chisels - it sold packages of four for thirty dollars. The clerk suggested alternatives like auger bits, but they had the same problems as dandelion diggers: their handles were too long and so narrow I would have to use by right thumb to grasp them.

The second hardware store had what I had decided I wanted, a 3/4" wood chisel with a short, fat handle. And, it worked. It was the width of a garlic chive’s bulb. After I dug the trowel down to create a crevice, the flat back side worked as a lever that slid under the root base and lifted it.

Allium tuberosum are in the Amaryllis family. Once I got a good look at its roots, I understood why I had never been able to do much more than cosmetic work. The leaf stems turn white at the base, then red where they attach to a bulb about an inch underground. That’s where they break because under the bulb are roots that radiate out more than an inch in every direction. The chisel was able to get under those anchors.

I also discovered plant clusters were more difficult to remove because their individual sets of spokes were entwined into mats that could only be removed by yanking them with my left hand from underneath. Then I could use the chisel to remove the satellites.

I finished the first round this morning, and planted sweet alyssum plants in the holes left by their removal. The alliums do doubt will return. I don’t know if the broken roots that remain in the soil will regenerate themselves, but I’m certain there are seeds down there and more will arrive in late summer. I’m hoping the alyssum will survive the coming heat and cover the empty spaces like a ground cover shield that protects against invaders.

Notes on photographs:
1. Doctor Huey hybrid rose, 30 May 2018.

2. Single garlic chive plant root, Allium tuberosum, 27 May 2018.
3. Cluster of garlic chive roots, 1 June 2018.