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How to get rid of Lesser Celandine

NewfieNewfie Posts: 5
in Problem solving
We have had the same garden for nearly six years and last year Lesser Celandine raised its pretty but destructive head. I have never come across it before in 40 years of gardening, I’ve been digging it out and using Thrust weed killer, so far without major success. Has anyone got a better cure for this pest which is killing plants, I also don’t like using chemicals in the garden.
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  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    What is it killing?
    Last year something ate all the leaves off mine but left the flowers. It's back in force this year but I've never known it to kill anything.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Sorry, but lesser celandine is not killing your other plants.   It has a very short period of high activity in spring with flowers that provide essential food to bees and other beneficial insects when few other sources of pollen and nectar are available.  It then dies down till the following spring, ceding its place to other plants.

    If other plants are failing I expect it's more to do with cultivation than this plant so check your soil for drainage and fertillity.  Is it heavy/stagnant/poorly drained/lacking nutrients?

    Digging it out can actually help spread the teeny bulbils and chemicals are best avoided because they have side effects and unintended consequences for other plants and critters.

    Have a read of this - https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/celandine
    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
  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043
    I have dug out loads, but it always comes back. I haven't found that it kills plants, especially if I thin it out. It completely disappears in summer.
    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    It's only there for a short time, and other plants will easily cover it as it dies back through summer. I love it, and often wish I actually had it in the garden, as I love seeing it at this time of year, and would be great in the shady bits to follow the snowdrops, and grow alongside the primulas and lily of the valley to give a succession.  It's still nice just now round here, in the areas with large deciduous trees, especially on sunny days when it opens properly. 
    It's not killing your plants, as others have said. Something else is causing that, and there could be many reasons.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited May 2023
    It's a losing battle.  A brief truce is the best you will get.  It's really quite a gay flower, I live with it.  Shade helps to control it, and stops the flowers looking quite so brassy.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    edited May 2023
    Lots of 'Brazen Hussey ' for sale at the local GC no one buying it half price but no takers.
    Not for a small/ medium garden. Belongs in a meadow.
    I do have a collection of doubles , sterile seed, spreads by bulbils , not the same problem as the singles. There are dark leaved doubles with orange flowers. 
    B3 I have seen pheasants eat the leaves and pigeons may like them as well.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I don’t understand why we love primroses but try to get rid of the cheery little celandines. Primroses can spread exponentially if the conditions suit them, and while celandine leaves disappear quickly after flowering, the leaves of primroses grow quite large and take up more space. 😵‍💫

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





  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited May 2023
    I understand:  Brazen Hussy says it all .  Brassy yellow flowers, even worse with red-shade leaves..  TYpical Christopher Lloyd "shock of the new".  

    Wild primroses are a delicate virginal pale yellow.  And primroses are easy to transplant (and lose).
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • alfharris8alfharris8 Posts: 513
    @GardenerSuze
    Brazen Hussey 🤣🤣. That's a new one on me and now I'm going to have "Don't look Ethel" in my head all day. Under 50's probably won't get that reference. 🤣
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Primulas grow so well here, and flower on and off all year, and I wouldn't be without them, but they do have their problems. Mostly tatty foliage from the slug damage.
    The celandines are terrific in that sense @Dovefromabove - no mess!
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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