[hawthorn]

I am looking to identify and get rid of this plant/weed. It was introduced to my garden attached to another plant given to me by a friend!?. It started growing in my herb patch but has now started to grow into my lawn. Its seem to be a perennial. Any help on ID and eradication of this plant would be greatly appreciated.

[Margo]

Looks like ground elder. A devil to get rid of as it has runners under the ground

[hawthorn]

Thank You Margo. That looks like the devil alright.

[Blowin]

Don't despair! It's edible and supposed to cure gout. Brought to the UK by the Romans. Old name was 'Goutweed or Goutwort'.

[Good guy]

Hard to see the silver lining in that cloud!

[Mews]

Dig out what you can of the ground elder roots carefully and leave the roots dry off before incinerating then. Level the area and turn it into a lawn, the constant mowing will eventually exhaust the plants resources and it will die. Might take three seasons before you can do anything else with that patch.

[hawthorn]

Thankfully i don't have any gout, (Blowin) must be all the plane food! I am considering digging out the roots from the Herb area and using Bayer Garden super strength Glyphosate sachets in that area of what remains for the roots and putting some on the lawn where the roots have reached. Good or Bad? I know the grass will die off.

[medieval knievel]

[tippben]

Hawthorn, use the glyphosate on the plants' leaves and leave it for a few weeks. If it doesn't translocate to the cells in the roots, it won't work. Try eating some like you would nettles or spinach - cooking them, then as a green vegetable with a nice dressing, or as a soup. If you like that, you could consider leaving some, but contained within plastic, like you would mint or bamboo. Otherwise, I would declare Absolute War, like I do with the Creeping Buttercup in my garden.

[hawthorn]

Thanks (tippben) & (Mews) for that advice. As you can see from the photo i have painstakingly removed the roots with a fine tooth comb from the area. The problem i now have is that some of the roots have grown under the lawn and under the concrete foot path.

So I'm guessing, eventually the roots will do a u-turn and make their way back to that now lovely weed free area from the lawn, even if i do mow it regularly.

If i use the Glyphosate around the lawn area affected and at the edges of the foot path, do you think it will kill off the roots?

[tagwex]

I might be wrong but I think it has to be absorbed through the leaves to get into the root.

[Mews]

Since I'm assuming you want to use the area ASAP for herbs. I reckon you can put a physical barrier there to stop the roots coming back into the area. Like slates for example. It is a common method to keep Raspberry roots confined to a specific area or it you want to grow figs outdoors you need to restrict their root spread if you want fruit.

Downside of that method is the herbs roots are confined also, which is no bad thing for herbs such as mint or horseradish - ensure you confine this to a pot the roots will take off given half a chance, they will even penetrate the ground through the bottom of the pot unless there is a barrier.

[tippben]

I concur Mews. A physical barrier would certainly help: butyl/heavy duty polythene, slates, even wood. Whatever is cheap, free, or to hand. My herb bed is a similar shape. It is bordered on every side by concrete paths, and after digging it over, I mixed in a bag of horticultural sand, and the same of grit, along with a bag of multipurpose. Then I edged it with wood . That was 6 years ago. Apart from occasional top dressings of leftover compost and fish blood and bone, along with the odd liquid feed, it has needed nothing, and all our kitchen herbs are doing fine. Bay, sage, bergamot, chives, fennel, parsley (which is self seeding now) oregano, marjoram, lemon balm, thyme, sorrel. We have rosemary and summer savory in another part of the garden. There is mint in a 15 litre pot with the bottom cut off. It tries to layer itself over the edge, but I pull it up, pot it, and give it away, or plant it somewhere in town.