Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) is an important aromatic plant that is used in spring to refine many recipes with a garlic-like aroma. There are various options for settling and relocating in the garden.
How can you transplant wild garlic successfully?
Wild garlic can be relocated either by sowing the seeds, planting bulbs or transplanting the entire plant. When transplanting, you should choose older, firmer leaves and always keep the plants moist. Two weeks of regular watering are required after planting.
Put wild garlic in the right place in the garden
There can be various reasons for growing wild garlic in your own garden, after all, it is not just an attractive ground cover for greening bare areas under deciduous trees and bushes. When harvested in nature, the tasty crop also poses dangers such as the fox tapeworm or being confused with poisonous counterparts such as Aaron's rod, lily of the valley and autumn crocus. In your own garden, these risks can be minimized with controlled cultivation and on a fenced property, so that you can also eat the harvested wild garlic raw if you wish. The right location is the most important criterion for successfully planting a self-propagating wild garlic crop. Wild garlic likes semi-shady to shady locations under deciduous trees with constant soil moisture and humus-rich soil.
Transplanting wild garlic as a plant
Basically, the following options can be considered for growing wild garlic in the garden:
- the sowing of seeds
- planting wild garlic onions
- transplanting the plants including the bulbs and leaves
After sowing the seeds of the cold germinating wild garlic in summer or autumn, in extreme cases it can take up to two years until the first plants appear. It's quicker if you plant the bulbs or the whole plants outdoors. Outside nature reserves, you can carefully dig up a few plants from a larger stand in March with a spade. Keep the plants moist by wrapping them in wet paper and put them back in the ground as quickly as possible. In the following two weeks you will need to ensure a constant supply of water through regular watering so that the leaves do not begin to wilt.
Pulling wild garlic from onions
Planting wild garlic bulbs requires less care than transplanting the entire plant. Purchase the bulbs from specialist retailers or dig them up in late summer when the wild garlic has already retreated into the ground. The onions must then be buried again at the same depth and, if possible, not allowed to dry out completely in between.
Tips & Tricks
When transplanting wild garlic, choose a time when the leaves are a little older and firmer. Then the plants wilt less quickly than if they are wild garlic plants with delicate, young leaves.