Topic: allium disease

[ACE]

I have had a bit of a setback with my purple sensation alliums. They have all flopped over and when I dug some out of their pots they were all covered  in a yellow rubbery slime. I have 300 alliums of different varieties in batches of 50 only the purple sensations have been hit . I have moved these away from all the others, It happened last week and the rest have not fallen foul of whatever it is. They were all in the same area, all watered together, all fed at the same time.

Has anybody else had any problems? It could well be a bad batch of bulbs from the suppliers, but I have never had this problem before, so I thought I would just check to see if there was a national problem before I go moaning to the supplier.

[Georgie]

Sorry to hear that, Ace.  Mine are okay here.

G x

[Robert_Brenchley]

Ornamental alliums have never done well for me (vegetable ones do fine) and I suspect it's because the plot gets so wet in winter. Could it be because of all the rain last year?

[ACE]

I think I have tracked down the problem, You are halfway there Robert, too wet. I do not usually use peat free compost. I had a delivery of allium bulbs and wanted to get all 300 in pots that day. I ran out of my usual compost and as I wanted  to finish the job, I grabbed a B&Q  bag of peat free and potted the last 50.

There is so much wood pulp and fibre board in the compost it just holds too much water, even with a mix of sharp sand. The alliums are rotting off.

Serves me right for being a cheapskate and not sticking to buying decent stuff.