Best way to get rid of ground elder?

[JoInScotland]

It is all through our border, near our hedge. I think it was under control before I became pregnant in 2009, but since January 2010 (when my son was born) I haven't had much time to garden. Each spring, I plant some daffodils and tulips, and the gardens are looking colourful now, but the ground elder is a big problem. Today I tackled a 4' x 3' area, and it was back breaking work. I dug down with a spade about a foot, took out all the ground elder & roots that I could find, and carefully avoided the tulips. Is this the best way to do this? Should I just wait until autumn? It is taking all the nutrients and space from my plants!

watching with interest...

I'm digging it up weekly in our back garden, and applying glyphosate in the front garden. I'm not sure what will work best.

When we bought this house, the garden had been neglected and consisted of nothing but ground elder. We lived with black plastic for a year and managed to choke it off, but it does come back under the fence from next door. Careful digging or glyphosate are your best bet.

You can eat it - google the recipes.

Glyphosate - it is the only way! The gel is meant to be good if it is the middle of something you want to keep, but I paint it on with a half inch paint brush

Either glyphosate it, or eat it. Not both.

I have a couple of areas where ground elder is taking over. i am waiting for a couple of sunny days to attack it with glyphosate. Meanwhile i am letting it get nice and leafy so that there is plenty of plant to spray as hopefully the larger surface area of leaf will carry more glyphosate to the root and kill it quicker.

Posting for moral supportable am late to this party, but our lovely new garden is full of the fecking stuff and horsetail too. Arrgghh.
Have been weeding the biggest, most sparsely planted beds, but will need to use a weed killer on the others I think. Such a shame as garden is full of lovely, established plants. Grrrr.

Excuse terrible typing, I should be asleep by now, rather than thinking about weeds...

If you google it looks like Tagetes minuta works:

www.sarahraven.com/shop/tagetes-minuta-mexican-marigold.html

Flamethrower or serious poison.

It takes forever if you try to dig it out.