A great insight Vinjay, thank you. Funny you say that. Earlier this evening, after I had read all the above comments, I went into the garden to assess the situation. Peering underneath the hedge and through the chain-link fencing, I can see that the edge of my neighbour's driveway pretty much abounds with ground elder and nettles without constraint. It's a rather grand house with extensive gardens to the rear and, understandably, the owners aren't interested in the relatively small section of grounds which border my own garden. As a novice gardener, it made me smile. It was like an epiphany, I thought "I can only do so much"!
Thanks for your input Steve. Not sure what couch grass is, but no doubt if I google image it, I will realise it is rampant in my garden too. Funny how literally twelve months ago I would accept most if not all weeds as "wild flowers". Only now am I starting to realise why we get cross about them.
no problem mrmustard it's a flippin nightmare, my mums is in her lawn also, two years ago i dug up her whole flower beds and dug all the plants out of that one and got all the roots i could find out and replanted but it is coming back through from next door and she has a cherry tree in the corner which was much too big to dig up and it's coming from there too, it's a menace. maybe you could ask the squire up at the big house if you could put down some weedkiller in that unused patch of garden before undertaking any remedy in yours.
You will find it easier to do in the autumn because your plants will die down, that little beast will stay there.
I have just used compost bags cut into 12 inch strips to put down in a trench along side the offending fence. The roots tend to go along and not too deep so you can trace them along. If you do break a bit, it will grow again but it's much easier to dig out next time.
You can beat it with determination, I can vouch for that!
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Thank you all. I purchased some weed killer today, will head out and try to apply it before sundown. If nothing else, at least I have successfully identified the weed before it flowers and goes to seed this year. I have a sneaking suspicion that I naivley considered it a "wild flower" last year and made no attempts to tackle it. It was my first ever attempt at gardening and I was preoccupied by flowers and slugs and dandelions - completely unaware of ground elder!
I may shuffle over to my neighbour's house and timdly ask if I can spray their weeds but given that we have barely spoken in the 12months I have been here, I do feel somewhat awkward announcing myself in this way. Surely it's only a matter of time before it finds its way into their back garden which are very formal, so I shouldn't think they want that!
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I do use a little spot in glyphosate on this and couch grass...
Weakening all weeds by regular decapitation helps!
no problem mrmustard
it's a flippin nightmare, my mums is in her lawn also, two years ago i dug up her whole flower beds and dug all the plants out of that one and got all the roots i could find out and replanted but it is coming back through from next door and she has a cherry tree in the corner which was much too big to dig up and it's coming from there too, it's a menace. maybe you could ask the squire up at the big house if you could put down some weedkiller in that unused patch of garden before undertaking any remedy in yours.
You will find it easier to do in the autumn because your plants will die down, that little beast will stay there.
I have just used compost bags cut into 12 inch strips to put down in a trench along side the offending fence. The roots tend to go along and not too deep so you can trace them along. If you do break a bit, it will grow again but it's much easier to dig out next time.
You can beat it with determination, I can vouch for that!
I may shuffle over to my neighbour's house and timdly ask if I can spray their weeds but given that we have barely spoken in the 12months I have been here, I do feel somewhat awkward announcing myself in this way. Surely it's only a matter of time before it finds its way into their back garden which are very formal, so I shouldn't think they want that!
exactly, you will be doing them a favour