Here in San Antonio, I have found this plant useful for lining the edges of my garden path and I believe it can be used in a rock garden ...Read Moresetting. I transplanted my plants from unirrigated lawns.
Over the years, I observed this to grow well in very poor, heavy clay soil where it survives lengthy droughts and periods of being in soggy poorly drained soil. Mine bloom twice a year, in late winter when irises bloom and in late autumn.
At present, my only reservations about this plant is its small size which makes its beauty fully appreciated only at close range and best if growing in large clumps, and as yet, I have not grown it long enough to determine whether it will prove weedy.
I have these growing in my yard and they multiply very fast and like unwanted wild onion grasses, they are hard to get out of perennial b...Read Moreeds due to the fact that you must get the complete root and if you miss a little piece it will regrow just like a real onion or garlic grass. What i like about these though is their beautiful white intracate wild flowers that bloom beautifully when their leaves start to turn silvery and they look great in contrast with tulip bulbs, sweet iris, and rock flowers like creeping phlox and also daffodils, that all bloom early-mid to mid season spring, even though this wildflower is invasive and poisonous to eat it is still beautiful..peace..mike
west Houston, TX (Zone 9a) | March 2008 | positive
Allium texanum
‘Texas False Garlic’ or ‘White King’ or ‘Texas Wild Onion’
A robust upland speci...Read Morees native to seepy, wet situations such as swales and bottomlands, in alkaline clay soil from the hills of Central Texas to Oklahoma. Many flowered dome-shaped umbels (60-100) of chalk white starry flowers with green ovaries appear in late spring (usually during the first months of May) on scapes nearly 2’ tall. The robust foliage is distinctive, being flat, about ½" wide, glaucous, blue, and spiraling. It needs to be well watered while flowering or the buds will abort. This is one of the two largest flowering native Texas wild alliums and was differentiated from Allium canadense var fraseri in 1990 by Thad Howard. Prior to this it was considered Allium canadense var fraseri (as yet another strain) but if you grow both of these alliums, like I do, they are as different as night and day with a distinctively different set of physical and ecological characteristics.
Easy to grow, undemanding, drought tolerant (but will appreciate late summer moisture while dormant); an excellent candidate for mixing in the border with daylilies or other late-spring blooming natives and perennials. Good for growing from zones 5-9.
Finger Lakes, NY (Zone 6a) | August 2007 | positive
Comming originaly from a region where this plant does not grow, I was pleasantly surprised to notice it growing in just about every ya...Read Morerd and grassy area in Houston. While this may make it a weed to some people's minds I find it to be an attractive little addition to the local flora. The foliage is grassy so it blends in well with most localy grown grasses leaving the flower stalks to make a nice desplay scattared throughout the field or yard.
I have had luck transplanting the bulbs into small pots where they looked quite attractive as a small accent plant on a stand on my patio. While the flowers last for some time, the plant dies down after the seeds ripen. The weather of Houston seems to interrupt the plants growth with the summer heat causing its dormancy after spring until cool weather returns again by mid fall.
This plant would make a nice accent scattered in a low growing or groundcover garden or wildflower landscape. Bulbs can be transplanted (say from the middle of your yard to your garden proper) or seeds collected from the plant once the seedheads have dried.
This plant is also called "False Garlic." It looks like wild onion or wild garlic but has fewer and larger flowers and lacks the distinc...Read Moretive onion odor.
Here in San Antonio, I have found this plant useful for lining the edges of my garden path and I believe it can be used in a rock garden ...Read More
I have these growing in my yard and they multiply very fast and like unwanted wild onion grasses, they are hard to get out of perennial b...Read More
Available from Native American Seed (www.seedsource.com). Poisonous if ingested.
Allium texanum
‘Texas False Garlic’ or ‘White King’ or ‘Texas Wild Onion’
A robust upland speci...Read More
Comming originaly from a region where this plant does not grow, I was pleasantly surprised to notice it growing in just about every ya...Read More
This plant is also called "False Garlic." It looks like wild onion or wild garlic but has fewer and larger flowers and lacks the distinc...Read More