Don't weed if you've sprayed - let the spray work and turn the leaves brown and shrivelled - it may take several weeks. When the leaves are dead it means that the spray has travelled down the stems to the roots and is killing them. If you pull the leaves off before this has happened the roots won't die.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
hello there I am a gardener in north wales I have specific experience in problems like ground elder, and have dealt with it many times. I managed to get rid of 99% of it from one bed in just 1yr..iv had to than manage, Good news it that's its not the worst weed to have on these fair isles...oh no! horse tail, is in my experience a bigger problem to get rid of than ground elder, but that may be due to the fact that I have more patience than a person needs really, what iv found the most effective way is to start at point A..say a square foot and dig out the soil to a depth of a spade and put that to one side.I Place In old compost bag...and (If you have the patience) start by gently but firmly shoving the fork into the ground and levering the fork into the hole(bit you dug out) where you can go through it and basically salvaging the soil back of the pesky ground elder. If you can keep that up until the hole filled with (clean) soil then have an area nearby with absolutely no ground elder around it. Dig clean soil out of hole and dump soil there. This is just repeated over and over as you start to "clean" the soil, The challenge really come when its coming up through clumps of perennials on which case dividing and salvaging what you can is the plan. If you manage any of this tediousness then just work up to shrubs, leave that till the bulk is done but cut down if about to flower/seed, because those seeds want to go back into that lovely clean soil, and on and on it goes. Sorry for the essay but I do this a lot and believe me its pretty much the only way to make sure it loses the fight...Eventually !!
my mum has ground elder in her garden, when she went away three years ago on holiday i did her garden as a surprise for her but before planting it up i had to tackle the ground elder(before i knew to rinse the roots) i dug out every plant and cleaned the roots of any trace of it and went through the soil and it did mostly stay out of the garden but this year it is taking over again. while sat in the car waiting for her today i noticed her two neighbours to the rights front gardens are completely covered in it and at the back her neighbour to the left must have it as it is coming in under the fence, it's a flippin menace and i think i would be fighting a losing battle even if i had the energy to do it all again
Hi Emma, I have just tackled the same problem, my ground elder had been established be or over ten years, last owners helpfully laid a path and patio without weeding underneath so can never quite eliminate without total deconstruction!
I have tho, removed every plant from the flower bed where it is the biggest issue as it had spread into the lawn. This meant I had to remove an extra metre and a half width of my lawn and weed and re-seed, sieving the soil does an excellent job of the majority of it, I haven't used any weed killer but have dug down a foot and a half, if you do it well it should only come back in the odd little shoot!
This is a two year old thread now, so I've been tackling this stuff for two years. Not so much a beginner now! It's tricky as a busy mum I don't have the time to do this organically, I'm struggling just to stop it going to seed etc. Both my neighbours have it and one doesn't tackle it at all, so I'm fighting a losing battle really. I've also discovered bush vetch, brambles, nettles and many many more. I'm definitely in a weed war! Thanks for all the tips.
Takes a long time to eradicate. You just have to keep on digging it up. Even the tiny little white suckers produce more of the rotten stuff. I've been digging it up and spraying it for close on 14 years. Still not got rid of it but it is not as bad as it use to be and only left in one part of the garden now. A tip is to do the weeding only after a lot of rain and get out there while the leaves are starting to sprout - before it has time to produce big leaves. Then follow up with constant turning over of the soil and picking out the remaining bits. No amount of weedkilling will eradicate it. It's a long hard slog I'm afraid. You'll get there in the end.
I have one small patch and I use a combination of digging it out as far as I can (some of it is mixed in with day lillies and if you have ever tried to divide them, you will know there actually is no soil and just a woody clump of roots so that isn't particularly useful!), chopping the leaves off to tire the plants and weaken them and a bit of carefully applied topical glyphosate.
Posts
Don't weed if you've sprayed - let the spray work and turn the leaves brown and shrivelled - it may take several weeks. When the leaves are dead it means that the spray has travelled down the stems to the roots and is killing them. If you pull the leaves off before this has happened the roots won't die.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Ah, thanks. Well with 3 kids I have plenty to be getting on with in the meantime
hello there I am a gardener in north wales I have specific experience in problems like ground elder, and have dealt with it many times. I managed to get rid of 99% of it from one bed in just 1yr..iv had to than manage, Good news it that's its not the worst weed to have on these fair isles...oh no! horse tail, is in my experience a bigger problem to get rid of than ground elder, but that may be due to the fact that I have more patience than a person needs really, what iv found the most effective way is to start at point A..say a square foot and dig out the soil to a depth of a spade and put that to one side.I Place In old compost bag...and (If you have the patience) start by gently but firmly shoving the fork into the ground and levering the fork into the hole(bit you dug out) where you can go through it and basically salvaging the soil back of the pesky ground elder. If you can keep that up until the hole filled with (clean) soil then have an area nearby with absolutely no ground elder around it. Dig clean soil out of hole and dump soil there. This is just repeated over and over as you start to "clean" the soil, The challenge really come when its coming up through clumps of perennials on which case dividing and salvaging what you can is the plan. If you manage any of this tediousness then just work up to shrubs, leave that till the bulk is done but cut down if about to flower/seed, because those seeds want to go back into that lovely clean soil, and on and on it goes. Sorry for the essay but I do this a lot and believe me its pretty much the only way to make sure it loses the fight...Eventually !!
Sion Evans-Traditional Gardener
Mold, North Wales, CH7 1UF
Nice to see someone dealing with a problem without resorting to chemicals Sion
In the sticks near Peterborough
my mum has ground elder in her garden, when she went away three years ago on holiday i did her garden as a surprise for her but before planting it up i had to tackle the ground elder(before i knew to rinse the roots) i dug out every plant and cleaned the roots of any trace of it and went through the soil and it did mostly stay out of the garden but this year it is taking over again. while sat in the car waiting for her today i noticed her two neighbours to the rights front gardens are completely covered in it and at the back her neighbour to the left must have it as it is coming in under the fence, it's a flippin menace and i think i would be fighting a losing battle even if i had the energy to do it all again
Hi Emma, I have just tackled the same problem, my ground elder had been established be or over ten years, last owners helpfully laid a path and patio without weeding underneath so can never quite eliminate without total deconstruction!
I have tho, removed every plant from the flower bed where it is the biggest issue as it had spread into the lawn. This meant I had to remove an extra metre and a half width of my lawn and weed and re-seed, sieving the soil does an excellent job of the majority of it, I haven't used any weed killer but have dug down a foot and a half, if you do it well it should only come back in the odd little shoot!
Good luck!
This is a two year old thread now, so I've been tackling this stuff for two years. Not so much a beginner now! It's tricky as a busy mum I don't have the time to do this organically, I'm struggling just to stop it going to seed etc. Both my neighbours have it and one doesn't tackle it at all, so I'm fighting a losing battle really. I've also discovered bush vetch, brambles, nettles and many many more. I'm definitely in a weed war! Thanks for all the tips.
Takes a long time to eradicate. You just have to keep on digging it up. Even the tiny little white suckers produce more of the rotten stuff. I've been digging it up and spraying it for close on 14 years. Still not got rid of it but it is not as bad as it use to be and only left in one part of the garden now. A tip is to do the weeding only after a lot of rain and get out there while the leaves are starting to sprout - before it has time to produce big leaves. Then follow up with constant turning over of the soil and picking out the remaining bits. No amount of weedkilling will eradicate it. It's a long hard slog I'm afraid. You'll get there in the end.
I have one small patch and I use a combination of digging it out as far as I can (some of it is mixed in with day lillies and if you have ever tried to divide them, you will know there actually is no soil and just a woody clump of roots so that isn't particularly useful!), chopping the leaves off to tire the plants and weaken them and a bit of carefully applied topical glyphosate.
Still comes back!