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Invasive plant

GrassyKnollGrassyKnoll Posts: 95
in Problem solving
I think (I know) I've made a bit of a schoolboy error. There's a lot of wild garlic around my way and it's a fabulous plant .A couple of years ago,  I dug up a couple of bulbs from a patch of 1000s and put them in my garden. Clearly I've brought something else along with it and it's gone 'mental'. 
What is it?
Should I dig it out or leave it?

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Posts

  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Ground elder, get it out as soon as you can, it will take a lot of patience in among those rocks, you'll probably need to keep pulling off the leaves every week or so for a couple of years. (or use a weedkiller)

  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 10,497
    It's always good practice to either wash the roots of stolen plants or keep them in a pot until you know they haven't brought any mates with them. Not that I condone stealing plants  :# Thinning crowded populations of common native plants and boosting the biodiversity of habitats can't be seen as too bad though.
    If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  • GrassyKnollGrassyKnoll Posts: 95
    Thank you both .as luck would have it I was toying with moving that rockery for another purpose and I think I will dig the whole lot out and start again. 

    Lesson learned (I hope).
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    if you want a full time job, for the rest of your life ( and still leave some for future generations ) you can hand weed.
    I'd very carefully use roundup, spray on bigger patches , and gel where it's between other plants. 
    Some would have me publicly flogged for this approach, but I can live with their condemnation.
    Your garden, your choice.
    Devon.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I’ve hand weeded mine, three quarter acre garden.  Not all beds and borders though.😀
    it can be done, just take it steady and thoroughly. I got most of it out in the first two years of planning, now it just pops up in tiny pieces, easliy caught before it gets big. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Lily PillyLily Pilly Posts: 3,845
    I have to hand weed as it is through a section of box hedging. 
    Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
    A A Milne
  • MuddyForkMuddyFork Posts: 435
    After 23 years of hand wedding I still have the stuff appearing every year.  I can't use weedkiller because it's amongst my Japanese Anemone.  Good luck
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    I was wondering how it spreads?  It has now popped up in two completely different parts of my garden so can't have gone underground to that extent. I'm thinking it likely it came in on the roots of another plant perhaps? 
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    edited May 2018
    Did you put it in your compost heap?
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Paul B3Paul B3 Posts: 3,154
    If your soil is a fairly open and a free draining loam , it is removable with a small garden fork , carefully extracting every piece of root .
    Might be a problem in 'sticky' soil though . It's when it grows through the roots of other plants that problems arise .
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