Ground Elder

[Westi]

Well I didn't have to water outside today as rain overnight which saved a fair bit of time; but of course ruined taking the spud harvest to dry off & bag up but did take a couple of varieties I only had a single row off. This wasn't in the plan but the dog was kinda persistent with trying to dig these but her goal was chasing a rat run; I'm pretty sure the rats will start another run somewhere though!

Had some bad news today, some of the strange little seedlings that popped up are ground elder & they have spread under my rhubarb, along both my neighbour & my fence line & into 2 of his front beds. It was immediately identified by next neighbour along who was just chatting to my neighbour & immediately spotted it as he is a gardener by trade. He shared a solution with my neighbour who is going to mix up the potion to paint the leaves for us both, but if I'm down when he decides to do it I will help him. Apparently it is likely to be repeat performance as it is a right bad boy & difficult to remove ; it is Gluco phosphate or something like that anyway with fairy liquid & something else in it!

Of course any suggestions & recommendations from your experience would be gratefully received as I think this potion may work but it requires re-applications frequently & will no doubt be overlooked when busy.

[tigerburnie]

Ground Elder is very pernicious, I inherited it in my garden, after 20 plus years I haven't even slowed it down, it even gets into pots and containers as the seeds set as well as the roots running under ground, flippin' Victorians have a lot to answer for!

[Westi]

As it was raining I did a bit of a search & it seems most big guy weed killers will slow it down. It sounds like an expensive exercise over time. Also I could find nothing on how often to spray, like do you bombard it with constant sprays over a period of time or wait until foliage grows again. I would personally edge toward constant sprays over the area in the hope the poison seeps into the soil & might leech into the ground deeper to reach the roots, but I would need to look at moving plants if I tried this, & on balance would it be worth it?

In the meantime I will follow the neighbours regime & see the results & continue to just follow & pull as much as I can when I see it sneaking up & watch for flowers! You have reassured me tiger as while obvs a pain you continue to grow. My neighbour was really angsty about it.

[oldherbaceous]

Evening Westi, when I took over doing my Mums garden, the borders were infested with ground elder….I don’t really like spraying but, I couldn’t see any other way of getting on top of it! I waited until it was growing strongly, but before any flowers had appeared, then sprayed…..this knocked it back considerably but, it reappeared from under the paths and out of the clumps of perennials, so early Autumn I resprayed again. This knocked a huge amount of it, and what does appear now, is at a manageable amount, that I can dig it out.
Personally I wouldn’t spray multiple times, as you need the leaves to absorb the spray, then take it down to the roots….

[Myrkk]

We have it too Westi and I have been reliably told it is edible. So my thought is to dig as much as possible and eat the young shoots next year. Trying to not use any weed killers, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

[Westi]

Cheers all! I will see how the neighbours spraying regime works, but I have my own back up weed killer which I only use along the fence line as just can't dig weeds out along there due to the buried multiple folds in the chicken wire. I will report back if the potion works & get the 'recipe' from the neighbour.

[AdrienneRobinson]

I had ground elder a few years back when I still had the allotment. I covered it completely with weed suppressing membrane and weighted it down with bricks etc, left it for a couple of years and it completely disappeared. . It did try to creep out from the edges but I stopped it in its tracks so was very pleased with the way that worked.

[Westi]

Thanks AdrienneRobinson,

That is reassuring. The neighbour has done a paint of the leaves along our front fence row, only been about a week, but it still looks nice & green. I have already thought that I might suggest removing the fencing for a bit so we can tackle it better as the wire is buried. We could both cover it & protect the plants there if we removed the fence, mind would need to put up temporary fencing to keep the dog in & doubt she would wait 2yrs without trying to escape!