Yep, I'm a lover of variagated ground elder too. I've used it before where the ordinary one was growing and it hid it really well! Everyone else thinks I'm crazy. In my current garden it is growing in a terraced bed, though, so is going to struggle to get away from me. Fab stuff for bringing a splash of light to your driest, most shady bits where nothing will grow. Particularly useful under things like laurel bushes and leylandii hedges, which are so notorious for killing off just about anything else. Looks really good with dark geranium phaeum and purple alliums all just mixed up randomly. And if is gets away, there's always bramble-killer!
Wow, so good to hear positive things about the variegated ground elder, I agree that it is super in reallly difficult dry places - previously I got some very sharp notes about it when I mentioned it. I've not tried alliums where it grows because it is so dreadfully dry, and I don't want the elder to escape - but the geranium phaeum grows there as well, with the pachysandrum - makes a good cover for a very inhospitable area.
interested to hear you grow it over the weedy one auntie betty - doesn't the green one overcome it? I am overun with that in part of my fruit cage - there is a bank going down to an old quarry there which is just elder, nettles and so on, so I can't really beat it. If I thought the variegated one would help I'd be tempted to try it there.
Spray off the offending area with bramble killer and then (after it goes brown) remove as much of the rubbish as poss, then dot little pieces of the variagated one across the area. It competes better than I expected, so does reduce the amount of the green one, but more importantly makes the whole area look prettier. ONLY consider this if you really have given up on the idea of total eradication for a good while tho! It isn't a solution - just a way of making a problem area more tolerable. That said, its no harder to get rid of than the ordinary ground elder if and when you feel like trying mass extinction again...
Thank you Bookertoo and Betty. I'm going to try moving some of mine into my 'woodland' area where the only things prospering in one large area are nettles. Not ideal ground cover.
I've found some proper bluebell seeds to try for a spring carpet, have geranium phaem seddlings I can move and am collecting dryopteris ferns so, just as soon as I get the all clear following my op, I'll be out there with gusto and optimism and aiming for a beautiful transformation.
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)."
Nice plan. Goes nice with violets, alchemilla, solomon's seal and hostas too. Lots of my garden is woodlandy (one big area is dry stone terracing on a disused railway embankment bordered entirely by huge hawthorns, laurels and birch). So I go in for a fair bit of shady ground cover! Tell you one thing that unexpectedly thrives... you know that variagated grass, pleiobastus i think, that you see sold the golden one sold as a pond plant, of all things... The white variagted one that looks a lot like the miscanthus but isn't does super well in dry shade. Another one that looks good with phaeum! Who knew...?!
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many thanks to you all for your help, it is much appreciated
Yep, I'm a lover of variagated ground elder too. I've used it before where the ordinary one was growing and it hid it really well! Everyone else thinks I'm crazy. In my current garden it is growing in a terraced bed, though, so is going to struggle to get away from me. Fab stuff for bringing a splash of light to your driest, most shady bits where nothing will grow. Particularly useful under things like laurel bushes and leylandii hedges, which are so notorious for killing off just about anything else. Looks really good with dark geranium phaeum and purple alliums all just mixed up randomly. And if is gets away, there's always bramble-killer!
Wow, so good to hear positive things about the variegated ground elder, I agree that it is super in reallly difficult dry places - previously I got some very sharp notes about it when I mentioned it. I've not tried alliums where it grows because it is so dreadfully dry, and I don't want the elder to escape - but the geranium phaeum grows there as well, with the pachysandrum - makes a good cover for a very inhospitable area.
interested to hear you grow it over the weedy one auntie betty - doesn't the green one overcome it? I am overun with that in part of my fruit cage - there is a bank going down to an old quarry there which is just elder, nettles and so on, so I can't really beat it. If I thought the variegated one would help I'd be tempted to try it there.
Spray off the offending area with bramble killer and then (after it goes brown) remove as much of the rubbish as poss, then dot little pieces of the variagated one across the area. It competes better than I expected, so does reduce the amount of the green one, but more importantly makes the whole area look prettier. ONLY consider this if you really have given up on the idea of total eradication for a good while tho! It isn't a solution - just a way of making a problem area more tolerable. That said, its no harder to get rid of than the ordinary ground elder if and when you feel like trying mass extinction again...
Thank you Bookertoo and Betty. I'm going to try moving some of mine into my 'woodland' area where the only things prospering in one large area are nettles. Not ideal ground cover.
I've found some proper bluebell seeds to try for a spring carpet, have geranium phaem seddlings I can move and am collecting dryopteris ferns so, just as soon as I get the all clear following my op, I'll be out there with gusto and optimism and aiming for a beautiful transformation.
Nice plan. Goes nice with violets, alchemilla, solomon's seal and hostas too. Lots of my garden is woodlandy (one big area is dry stone terracing on a disused railway embankment bordered entirely by huge hawthorns, laurels and birch). So I go in for a fair bit of shady ground cover! Tell you one thing that unexpectedly thrives... you know that variagated grass, pleiobastus i think, that you see sold the golden one sold as a pond plant, of all things... The white variagted one that looks a lot like the miscanthus but isn't does super well in dry shade. Another one that looks good with phaeum! Who knew...?!