How to Treat Wild Garlic

Wednesday November 30, 2011 - Wild garlic is a "cool-season" perennial weed common in the southeast. Although it is a close relative to the garlic cultivated in your garden, it is very undesirable in your turf. Wild garlic has slender, hollow, tubular leaves and will produce small, greenish-white flowers. You will recognize the distinctive garlic aroma when you crush a bulb. Wild garlic reproduces by seeds, aerial bulbils and through its underground, tuberous root system.


We apply herbicides to help control the problem. However, wild garlic has a tough outer casing on its leaves, making it difficult for herbicides to adhere to it. Herbicides will damage, control and reduce wild garlic, but will not eradicate. This perennial will appear in the early spring and late fall. Eradication is only achieved if the nuisance growth is completely removed from your lawn. Wild garlic should be dug out whenever possible, and if caught at first appearance will not become a major problem. Make sure the bulbs and roots are dug out as well.

(Although wild onions are not mentioned in this article, the same set of problems and solutions apply.)