Have you found it in your garden or in the grass verge outside your house?
The Plaza Planters, the group of volunteers who planted all the bulbs which have brought colour and beauty to Mount Merrion this Spring have also spent hours removing this invasive plant from the public green spaces around our estate. It’s often wrongly identified as wild garlic (Ramsons), a native plant which belongs to the same onion family, but this 3-comered leek, named for the shape of its pointed leaves, is a foreign invader. It is known to have serious impacts on the natural habitats it aggressively invades. It has the potential to occupy large tracts of land to the exclusion of other – especially native – plants, totally dominating the ground flora, crowding out and displacing indigenous grasses and ground covers. In your gardens it can, if not checked, take over your lawns and flower beds to the exclusion of your prized specimen plants or those of your neighbours.
It is not easy to eradicate, spreading vigorously via seed and bulbs, and requires constant removal by digging up the whole plant and disposing of it safely so it does not spread to protected nature areas. The weedkiller, Roundup, is also effective, though not without its hazards.
Allium triquetrum is one of over thirty invasive plants listed as a threat to Ireland’s biodiversity and the National Biodiversity Data Centre requests that any sightings are reported to them.