Comments on: Bishop’s weed – your super-wrong plant for mixed borders

By: Maggie H

Maggie H — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:45:40 +0000

Wow, I am stunned. I can KILL Bishop's Weed. I live in Spokane, WA and if you don't water this stuff well all summer it dries up and dies. I have killed it myself. I have never seen it take over anything up here. I thought we had a more temperate climate than Nova Scotia, though. I guess there are places where it will thrive and places where it behaves itself. Maybe with Global Warming you too can cook it to death. Best of luck to your efforts to eradicate it!

By: BigAssSuperstar

BigAssSuperstar — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:43:20 +0000

I’m in Nova Scotia, and on a mission to eradicate the goutweed that’s taking over the yard at my new home … although we’ve spent hours on digging out the flower bed at the side of the house, we’re not near the end … or the beginning of the end. It still feels like we’re at the beginning of the beginning. This is going to be a fight.

I’m going to take on the back half of the yard with a weed whacker tonight … and blast the hell out of it with Roundup when it comes back.

And, for the record, my first idea for handling it was “cover it with gas and set it on fire” … but, sadly, we’re not even allowed backyard bonfires in my neighbourhood.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:10:33 +0000

Amen sister. Be warned ye garden enthusiasts. I finally spent the many hours necessary to do a first cull of the beguiling Bishop’s weed that took over my gorgeous woodland beds. I raked through the top 3″ of soil to get as many of the “bean sprout root-lets” as I could. I introduced it years ago and while it charmed me with its early spring green, it patiently threaded its way out-of-bounds, in and through the helibores, beyond the skimmia japonica, surrounding my hostas, choking into the cherry tree’s roots — all to bad effect. Thank you for cautioning the new gardeners – and good with it. Unless you use it as Susan suggested, I think it will become your nightmare. Unfortunately several of my neighbors admired it and introduced it into their beds as well and I warned them then, and will congratulate them when they decide it has to go.

By: Ann

Ann — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:59:58 +0000

I have Bishop’s Weed but it never turns into too much of a thug b/c it is the preferred food for my slugs. As soon as it starts getting cocky and spreads, it gets the slug smack-down. Not the ideal control!

By: Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Carol, May Dreams Gardens — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:02:40 +0000

Susan, Sigh, we gardeners are all alike. In OUR gardens these thuggish plants won’t be an issue, we’ll stay on top of them, contain them, control them, eradicate them if we must. I have just about gotten rid of the “goutweed”, as I learned to call, and what remains is hidden under a big Kerria japonica. I think it’s hiding there so I can’t get it, but when I turn my back, it’s going to jump out and start growing again!

By: Lucy Corrander

Lucy Corrander — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:22:36 +0000

Hello

I went to leave a note on your Blotanical plot but it looks as if you don’t go there much so I’m leaving it here instead.

Hope that’s ok.

This is it.

‘This is an unashamed advert for my blog PICTURES JUST PICTURES (which tends not to get noticed because my other blog is listed first!). It’s a photo a day (without words) – mainly but not exclusively of the landscape. I thought I’d let you know, hoping you like it! Lucy’

By the way, I’ve always thought ‘Bishop’s Weed’ was another name for ‘Ground Elder’. (Showing a historical divide in Britain.)

But this isn’t ground elder in the photo . . . so I’m a bit thrown!

Lucy Corrander

PICTURES JUST PICTURES