# To kill an onion **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199 "2004-02-26T00:29:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/1 "2004-02-26T00:29:24Z")
The lawn of our new house is infested with chives, of all things. While it make a lovely smell when I mow, they make the lawn look like it had green hair plugs. Is there any reliable way of getting rid of these? Since they’re a bulb, I don’t think mulching will help. There’s far too many to seriously consider digging them out individually. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![quiltguy154](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ad7895/32.png) [@quiltguy154](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy154)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/2 "2004-02-26T02:15:08Z")
My sympathies to you. Each one of those clumps is composed of several dozen bulblets. You can dig up a big ball of earth surrounding each clump, but if you miss even one bulblet, it’ll eventually re-grow. There’s no chemical I can think of that’ll help you out, just a sturdy trowel and grim determination. ---
**Author:** ![Extraneous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/0ea827/32.png) [@Extraneous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Extraneous)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/3 "2004-02-26T02:35:07Z")
I’ve got the same thing. What will not work: Covering with an old wool carpet (it decayed, the onions survived). Covering with the black material used under wood chips as a lawn (thery’re still there, waiting). The only thing I have ever heard of working was from an old farmer in southern IN (clay and loam soil). He loaded his disc with kerosene - it killed the onions, but nothing would grow there after that. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/4 "2004-02-26T09:24:32Z")
Very regular, close mowing should eventually get rid of them - grass is pretty much the only thing that can stand up to close, frequent cropping. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/5 "2004-02-26T12:26:49Z")
Umm, those aren’t chives, most likely. what you probably have is wild garlic or wild onions like [these](http://www.weedalert.com/weed_pages/wa_wild_garlic.htm) I’ve been able to get rid of them in early spring by spraying or painting with Round up while shielding the surrounding vegetation. However I only had a few clumps. ---
**Author:** ![gcarroll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@gcarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gcarroll)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-kill-an-onion/231199/6 "2004-02-26T13:00:03Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > The lawn of our new house is infested with chives, of all things. While it make a lovely smell when I mow, they make the lawn look like it had green hair plugs. Is there any reliable way of getting rid of these? Since they’re a bulb, I don’t think mulching will help. There’s far too many to seriously consider digging them out individually. > > Any ideas? There is a herbicide called “Riverside” that works (worked?) very well. I found that it killed wild onions and garlic but did not hurt Bermuda a bit. It’s been a few years (ok, about 15) but I recall that I sprayed it as a spot treatment of the “green hair plugs” and it got about 90% of them in one try. The remaining ones were curled and yellowed and were easily killed by the second treatment about 2 weeks later. No regrowth even years later. It made the grass within a couple of inches of the spot slightly yellow for a week or so, but no long-term effect. Downside: as I recall it contained arsenic as the primary ingredient. I think it’s still available in concentrate form at farm supply places, but have no idea if it’s available in “residential” quantities at garden shops.