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Any experience with campanula (bellflower)?

HouseFinchHouseFinch Posts: 328
in The potting shed
It keeps invading. Should I keep some, or eradicate it entirely?
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  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    We know several types af campanula, quite a few of which are sometimes called ‘bellflower’ ... which one have you got? Can we have a photo please?

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • HouseFinchHouseFinch Posts: 328
    edited June 2019
    It is spreading by runners underground. This is the origin of the infestation.
    Do I have it right? Or is the first picture a completely different plant? I have the flowering purple flowers out front of our house as well, but I haven't had to weed it back repeatedly as I have with this one.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    The plant with white flowers is a companula. The other leaves in picture 1 is a different plant although it could be a different type of companula. Someone here will tell you what it is. Personally, I think they are so pretty that it would be a shame to weed them out but if you don't like them, it's your choice.
  • HelixHelix Posts: 631
    I have them and I weed out most of them after flowering, and always seem to have enough the next year.   Although if they are in the way of something more precious then they go whether or not they’ve flowered.

    The big leaf is something else.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Those wide green leaves have nothing to do with that campanula, you can try carefully digging that up or you may have to dig up the whole root of the campanula and tease out the weed.  
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    The white flowers are on the taller stems with the narrow leaves and are campanula persicifolia.   

    If you have purple bellflowers with broader leaves they could be campanula glomerata or , if they are a paler purple and low growing, they could be campanula carpatica.   

    You can google the names for images to help you identify yours.    I think they're all lovely and make better ground cover than your average weed.  Easy enough to pull up if you want to plant something else.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I dont think those leaves belong to any campanula.  There may be a different strain in Canada that I’ve never seen, I’ve got a few varieties  none spread by underground runners. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • OmoriOmori Posts: 1,674
    Campanula poscharskyana spreads by underground runners, and develops quite large leaves at the base.  Mine is purple but there is a white variety:


  • HouseFinchHouseFinch Posts: 328
    @Lyn You are correct. Closer examination shows that it is completely different.  So I am back to square one. The 'weed' is surrounding and entangling the stalks of the other plants.
    I have tried our local sites-but I was either told to download an app (which was useless btw, and labelled it lemon balm), or someone saw the flowers in the second photo and labelled it campanula (bellflower). Hence, I thought that was what it was.
    I have searched through every local weed database and nothing compares. I suspect the previous owner planted it for ground cover then discovered how invasive it is and couldn't get it out. I would leave it, except it does look like it will choke everything out.
    @Omori The foliage on those is quite full and beautiful.
    This is the one out front-but it could completely be misidentified. It has spread to the side of the house in the pavement cracks on it's own.
    This is a close-up on the purple flower foliage:
    And you can see the white bellflower foliage here-it is quite thin and stalky the farther up it goes:

  • HouseFinchHouseFinch Posts: 328
    Haha, we've got it!
    Someone posted this on social media-on a completely different thread. It is a chameleon plant. Looks different on the runners than the top. Makes it harder to identify and pull out I guess.



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