Carpets of wild garlic

The Dells along the Water of Leith look wonderful carpeted in wild garlic (and wild leeks) and the air smells of garlic already, even before the first flowers are out! 

Here the wild garlic (ramsons) is growing through fallen leaves

and these slopes look lovely covered in wild leeks (you can tell they're leeks rather than garlic because of the narrower leaves).

 The very wide leaved plant in the photo below is harts tongue fern.

Wild leeks are invasive and tend to take over areas which before were covered in wild garlic, which makes affected areas look very different. Both plants smell quite strongly of garlic, so that stays the same! I'm not sure what the ecological effects of the wild leeks are, as I imagine the two plants are pretty similar in terms of what eats them (does anyone have any information on that at all?). A lot of people forage wild garlic, which can leave bare areas, ripe to be taken over by the leeks. So I suggest foraging the leeks instead, their leaves I think make as nice a pesto as the wild garlic leaves do.......