boy i made a mistake .. ONCE ... of thinking violets were so cute ...

and as it grew.. i noticed it sprouted in spring to a seed pod.. then flowered.. then seeded again.. not to mention growing underground and clumping ...

then when i pulled them out.. and as i worked.. threw them in the grass.. lo and behold.. they were in the grass ..

crimminey.. i moved .. lol ...

and then the new house.. its all over the 5 acres.. and frankly.. one of the few things in the meadow [i dont really call it grass or a lawn out here] .. the only thing that stays green when everything else browns out 7/1 to 9/1 ... at 400 feet.. it looks like a nice green lawn .. lol

that is the long way of saying i went zen on violets in the lawn.. lol ...

what other things took you years to eradicate from your garden.. or are you still working on eradicating ...

oh.. 3 years to kill an underground poison ivy vine ...

ken

Just sayin...

Kevin

Scourges I hope you never get, Aegopodium podagaria (bishop weed,) Convallaria (lily of the valley,) Hedera helix (English ivy,) Akebia quinata (chocolate vine - clever way to market a weed!)

Nandina. Ugh-a-rama!

in theory.. no plant is impossible to kill.. you know that..

let me rephrase it this way.. what took you the longest to get rid of .....

i can add grape hyacinths on some level.. i will always have them.. but dont ever try to get rid of them ...

and i gave up on buying the same $100 worth of annuals every year ... whats that all about.. may as well bang my head on a wall ... find something that reseeds itself in a mild manner ... [well, talk about distracted ... lol.. that is supposed to go in my other post.. left behind plants.. oh well.. i will paste it there.. lol ...] .. annuals are easy to kill.. ma nature takes care of those.. lol ...

ken

Kevin

Berry vines. Boxwood.

Chocolate Joe-pye weed reseeds everywhere for me.

tj

20 years later the lesser celandine has taken over his entire backyard (Which are all garden beds). He was not a computer user, so he had no way to find out what it was before it was too late. And getting rid of it is physically impossible.. short of removing the top soil. So now every year when it gets warm enough, the entire backyard looks like it was microwaved as all the celandine melts down to mush as the "real" garden continues to grow on.

The few plants I got as divisions carried plenty of the minute bulbs with them ... which then took a few years to eradicate in my garden.

Rhonda

Same year, a gardening friend 'gifted' us with donations from his garden - goutweed, purple violets, lily-of-the-valley, ozark sundrops, black-eyed-susans, english ivy, vinca. Laughing yet?? Perhaps some time we'll do like Ken and move. Meanwhile we still have remnants of all of the above. Oh - we also planted Boston Ivy - a single plant that has engulfed all four sides of our house. (Free air conditioning!) NO PURPLE LOOSTRIFE though lol.
Jan

Sweet autumn Clematis.

Susan

I had a friend who planted some white Goose Neck Plant -Lysimachia clethroide- because her husband liked it. A few years later she was digging up an entire area of her perennial bed and literally sifting the dirt for pieces of roots in order to rid the area of this thug. It wasn't so cute after while.

I planted some light pink Bouncing Bet a couple of years ago. While I do enjoy the fragrance of the flowers and even the plant habit, I've now spent quite a lot of time digging out the main plant and all the new baby plants that come up from the runners. It's even tried to grow into the lawn, near the area I planted the main piece given to me in a trade. I may try to plant some in a pot and bury the pot in the ground if I decide I can't live without it. There's nothing like the fragrance it gives off during a warm summer evening but keeping it from spreading around is a pain.

Linda

Be very careful about well-intentioned people who are generous with their plants, these are often the worst invasives.

Pachysandra. My neighbours & I have waged a decade long war against "kudzu of the north". You have to dig at least a foot down & sift or it will be back. Neither poison nor fire nor tarping will slow it down.

Manitoba maple & Chinese elm. They can be killed, but you need to make sure your neighbours aren't going to call the cops when you KILL IT WITH FIRE!

I patrol regularly for lemon balm & mugwort seedlings (& I do cut the flowering tops), but they are merely a pain, not impossible.

Yes to Lysimachia. I put in just a few of those years ago to brighten up areas next to newly planted spreading jumpers and Karl Forsters. Mistake! I wouldn't say that it's impossible to get rid of, just don't turn your back on it.

Creeping Charlie finds its way into my yard so easily. I guess you can get rid of it with chemical warfare, but I hand pull it.

Oenothera 'Siskiyou', the pink evening primrose, spreads like crazy. It will cover everything in its path.

Kevin

Strangely enough I don't have a problem with Convallaria. It's been biding its time for years, now, and rarely flowers. Held in check by the Camellia hedge and the Dicksonia antarctica, I suspect.

Yarrow is another struggler, for me. It doesn't like heavy applications of compost or mulch. Tends to rot out after a while.

On the violet front I had my epiphany in November.
I had carefully dug violets out of cracks, crevices, crannies, and crab shells. Okay, there weren't any crab shells in my garden. I just went a little overboard with the alliteration.
The violets that had me assuming the ancient garden weeder position -- head down, tail up -- were enjoying a gravel path along the side of my house.
One of these days I might hit the jack pot and re-do this path "properly". (um, doubt it.) In the meantime it's a national weed preserve. Then the light bulb went off. The violets ... oh, yes, the Garden Club sells them every year and so does the Native Plant society chapter. I mean, come on, these are plants people buy and I'm pulling them up when they are doing a job I had just started contemplating buying something else to do, i.e. ground cover. They do a reasonably good job of smothering out weeds that are way uglier.

And, since violets aren't among the so-called steppables, as soon as I re-do this path with violets filling in here and there, they will probably keel over and die. Guaranteed eradication technique. Breathe in, breathe out, visualize the path with violets handling a tricky situation in a special spot. The violets will immediately begin to look peeky, leaves limp, yellow, croak.

Either way, dead or alive, I'll be happy.

Smilax vine in the midst of a clumpy shrub!

I've also been fighting with milkweed. I don't know if the people who lived in our house before us planted it or if it just took off from neglect, but I had stalks almost three feet tall in the back of my house. I'm *very* allergic. Last summer, we screened the dirt down a bit more than a shovelfull deep and it still came back. Hopefully our cold winter killed it (ha, ha).

I cannot seem to grow lily of the valley well...at least, it is not poking up yet this year. (Crosses fingers)

I have yarrow paprika seeds that I have not started yet. Is all yarrow invasive?

Field mice tend to take care of obedient plant-I have yet to see it make it to flowering. They mow it every year. I've decided to leave some, so they eat that and leave my other things alone!

Lola-lemon you mention creeping bellflower. I received one from a plant swap this year. It sure looks innocent enough. Should I rethink this? They never mentioned that it was a bully in the garden.

Lily of the valley is another thug--I actually asked my neighbor to come with his backhoe and dig them out so they're mostly gone now. Do I think they won't show up again? I'm I a gardener... I KNOW they will...it's only a matter of time.

Creeping bellflower is a horrible plant; you can never get rid of it. I didn't even buy this plant, it just appeared one day and grew into my daylilies. When digging it out, you need to sift through the soil and get rid of any traces of roots because those pieces will become a new plant.

Clustered bellflower is not much better. I do have the peach-leaved, which self seeds like crazy but seems easier to pull out. There are some really nice, well-behaved, bellflowers but you really need to do your research.

I just love all of the information one can get on this forum!

Diane

Bindweed is a challenge to eradicate as are burdocks and wild (poison) parsnips. All one can do is keep them at bay by cutting and pulling.

I have a love/hate relationship with blackberry brambles. I let some grow to harvest the fruit, but keeping them from overtaking the whole property is a constant struggle.

BTW although selectives appear to kill violet and creeping charlie faster, if you don't have to use a selective, the high strength version of roundup actually kill them more thoroughly. It just takes 2-3 weeks until they finally appear dead, versus 1-2 days with the selectives. Just be sure to add enough surfactant, the leaves of violet have a waxy coating.

From the North America Butterfly Association:
Importance as a caterpillar food source: Fritillary caterpillars are often divided into two groups; Greater and Lesser. The Greater Fritillary butterflies are larger and the caterpillars feed exclusively on violets. The Lesser Fritillary butterflies tend to be smaller in size and while they use violets as a caterpillar food plant, they also will select other host plants such as passionflower.

So, that just makes me feel better about having let them all go! I plan to go pull out the Lilies of the Valley that I planted years ago and which are just now looking as if they are starting to spread! Thanks!

My battle with mint has calmed down over 4 years. Now there is just enough that pops up for me to actually use in salads etc. The gooseneck is another story and I wish I'd listened to people here. I got completely seduced by their beauty.

My compost/dumping ground is quite pretty right now with random growths of chives, huskers red penstemons, magenta cranesbill and ... vinca.

it takes over golf courses- which are heavily sprayed and mowed! My neighbor nuked his whole lawn and had it resodded-- but still the stuff came back.

If you let it go for a few years, I doubt you will ever get rid of it. Ever. I mean that with total sincerity. And if you don't weed it religiously, it will out compete everything else.

Ok, I think you may have convinced me :)

Diane

apparently pokeweed is on everyones mind this month ....

ken

False lamium... I have it creeping under the privacy fence from the little woodsy area behind the house. It looks pretty in the pure-shade corner with the lemon balm. I just sigh when I look at it all in all its thug-glory