Ground elder

lostinrates

stumpycat wrote: »

yellow poppies with roots like parsnips everywhere. :mad:

I want them!

gardenroute

Digging up plants and washing them? I seriously wouldn't try that if I were you. I've tried both the digging out and spraying techniques to get rid of this, and spraying is the quickest and easiest option.

To spray you don't need to hit every leaf, just most of them. A paint brush or cotton bud can be used for the more awkward spots. Leave it a week or two and then spray again. You may need to repeat a third or fourth time, and probably the following spring as well, but you have less to deal with each time. Try and find a concentrated weedkiller and use it neat when painting it on (just watch out for drips)
Digging out is difficult as the roots will grow through the roots of other plants (washing the plant won't help with this). Elder will also be the first plant to return to the disturbed soil, so you may end up with more than when you started. Its not impossible though, each time you leave a bit in the soil it will grow back, but there will be less of it each time. The trick is to take out as much as possible, trying to follow the roots along as you gently fork them out of the soil. Then keep on top of the regrowth, forking out each fragment as new leaves emerge. It's easier to go out on a daily weed patrol (5 mins), than spend four hours a month digging up your beds. Under established shrubs a thick layer of newspaper, etc can be used as a temporary barrier.

At this time of the year elder grows so quickly you may feel you're on a losing battle, but it tends to slow down in the summer.

With established weeds like this its a war of attrition, and with patience and perseverence you can win.

Sambucus_Nigra

The Japanese Anenome of course isn't a weed - it flowers late summer through to the autumn with either white or pink flowers and will sit there quite happily the rest of the time. You do need to work out where to keep it though as it spreads through roots...but if you do dig them out, plant them into pots and give them away as they are quite an expensive plant to buy.

Fay

Oh dear, this ground elder is spreading like wild fire and I do have bindweed, argh.

Anyway, although you have all helped lots with the ground elder problem, I'm still having a bit of a problem telling it apart from something else that's growing by it-well I think it's something else, or is it larger ground elder??
In this picture I know the lighter green plant in the bottom left of the shot is ground elder-but are the other plants just to the right of it the dreaded weed too and the similar looking but bigger plants to the top of the picture?

All help gratefully received-if anyone fancies a few hours painting ground elder or bindweed, you're more than welcome to join me :rotfl::(

Horace

My later MILs garden was full of ground elder - it was a right pain in the backside to get rid of. At the time I was working at a university so asked the head of landscape maintenance what I should use on it - he said that the only really good way was to cover it with the weedkiller called Roundup as this more potent than the usual varieties. So it was a mixture of roundup, digging and burning.

annie123

I could give you some creeping buttercup to compete with it

I've been watching it (elder) trying to get in from my neighbour on the left for a few years, and this year its done it :mad:
on the other side I have Japanese knotweed :mad:
I already have creeping buttercup and bindweed (which is the easiest of the lot to keep under control) and this may be the first year I'm not organic, the chemicals may well be coming out as I seem to spend more time out there weeding than anything else at present.

Roundup is what I will be using but only away from my veg area, will keep doing that by hand, unfortunately that's where the CB likes to be most :mad:

savemoney

I had it in my garden 3 years ago I didnt know what it was at first. I thought I had got rid of it 2nd year but even tiniest bit of root and it can grow back, luckily it was only a small piece and I managed to get rid of it for 2 years now. It was only in a small area where it grow. I did to dig up all the soil and sieve through it

Fay

It really is a bit of a nightmare, especially as I seem to have a wonderful collection of many different varieties of weeds...all growing around establised plants. Sadly the maintenance side of the garden has been neglected in favour of the owner planting more and more! I am going to be painting and spraying the elder this weekend, and bind weed. But could do with knowing if I need to kill anything else in the pics above before I start!

valentina

I think the "other" plant in the picture might be Japanese anemone - RAS suggested this in post number 2

lostinrates

re planting more...thats exactly what I do...my theory is that the more competiton from plants the less room for weeds. It needs weeding around, which is fiddly though.