Thugs..you know you’ve got them

[Quarks69]

And now is the time to dig them up, but I always feel bad about killing any plants and I keep leaving it. At the moment I am thinking I should dig up acanthus mollis, bear breeches, as it keeps popping up in other parts of my bed. Deep rhizomes. Has anyone successfully kept this under control?

And any other thug stories... my garden is home to too many of them creeping across their boundaries!

I managed to reduce our indeed issue by gathering a load into a bag, spraying roundup into the bag, and closing with a clothes peg

It made it look as if the local dog walkers had left their produce all along our 3m high laurel hedge, but it did the job pretty well.

A huge holly tree which seriously needs dealt with, before it falls down on the shed. I rather like Alchemilla but it does pop up everywhere.
We have periwinkle which spreads like crazy, along with the dandelions and buttercups, but I dont mind my thugs at all. I like a rambly wildlife garden so I dont do much to manage it tbh

To keep thugs from creeping in from next door, I dug a trench along the fence and lined the bottom and far vertical wall of the trench with landscaping fabric. Butyl lining will work too. Then back filled. Doesn't stop everything but enough that I could keep on top of it. Sprayed the ground elder on my side with glyphosate, and just keep digging out the regrowth. It's an extreme solution and not always practical but I was at my wit's end.

dementedma I have a soft spot for the thugs too (which is often my undoing)
Except for herb Robert, that gets ripped out whenever I see it.

I saw someone selling Herb Robert on a carnival plant stall one time. Bloody nutter!

My garden has plenty of thugs, but it enabled me to take up the front lawn and immediately fill it with "spare" plants from the rest of the garden.
Someone on a local community group asked for seedlings, so I offered her a few of my garden spares. She left with a full IKEA bag and a bin bag full of plants (and I urged her to return in summer for bulbs). There aren't even any glaring gaps from that!
My main thug is ferns. When we moved in there were a couple of ferns, now I'm finding them everywhere! I foisted about 10 ferns on IKEA bag woman (who must have looked strange on the bus home) and could easily lose another 30 without feeling a lack of ferns.

Oh and rosebay willowherb which self seeds like a bitch in any corner it can find. The hawk moth caterpillars love it so I feel so guilty pulling it out but if I don't it will take over from everything! You could just cut the flower heads off as soon as there's any sign of going to seed.

Elephant hawkmoth also goes for fuchsia. (same family).

Not scutch but a different grass that wanders through the flowerbeds. Agrostis? - Creeping Bent? I think it's used in lawn mixes.(I assume scutch is another word for couch/twitch?)

Every year, i aim for a glut of courgettes and runner beans. Do I get a glut? No. So glad you said that. Failure to get a glut of courgettes is my guilty secret.

I saw someone selling Herb Robert on a carnival plant stall one time. Bloody nutter! The common pink one? Or the white variety?

Mexican potato vine. The thing was already planted in two places, but was very bushy. And deep, taking up a lot of garden. So I cut one down, expecting it to regrow from the base. The sod is actually regrowing from everywhere it had roots. Nightmare. My whole fruit garden is being invaded.

The pink one.

Some of us kill everything, so this thread sounds like plants which might work for me. Would a garden full of sweet woodruff be so terrible rather than grass?

I dont get a glut of courgettes either. Tsk.

No courgette glut here either.

I've almost got rid of the periwinkle, and am happy enough with the aquilegia. The crocosmia is awful- I've tried several times. I get loads of leaves, and precious few flowers. It's really not worth it's keep in a tiny garden, but it's so hard to get rid of.

I'm with the others here, my garden is described by DH as "the plant graveyard" and "where plants go to die".

Somehow I can grow peonies in one select place

Am actively encouraging aquilegia!

@FuzzyPuffling try persicaria - it looks wonderful and the bees love it. But by god it spreads if it's happy and the rhizomes are so tough to chop through.

And a pink cranesbill that a friend gifted to me to fill all the gaps in my new, very bare garden, which I knew was a thug, but that doesn't realise it's outstayed its welcome. Easier to rip up than the persicaria though.

At my last house I had a lovely firethorn (pyracantha) by the kitchen window which provided nesting for lots of little sparrows - it was great to watch them go in and out while I washed up - but it grows like the devil and its thorns are terrible. My neighbour pruned it twice a year to try and keep it down a bit as it threatened to push up the gutters.

Forget-me-not love to grow between the cobbles but the alchemilla mollis hasn't really got going.

I have a cotoneaster and there are wrens nesting in it, but i needs trimming every few months and it is very thorny. Always a good show of berries though.

Must be soil-related whether crocosmia is an issue or not
It totally behaves itself in my garden and doesn't spread (heavy clay). Little bluebells on the other hand... I dug out loads last year and thought I'd only left a few pockets of them but they are still coming up everywhere.

Perhaps what we need is a "ThugSwap"...one man's meat being another's poison!

Yes to Sweet Woodruff...its pretty but spreads like crazy
Nigella...never let them into my garden...again, very very pretty but you get their little carrot tops coming up everywhere and it will never ever go!

Forget-me-nots. The clue is in the name.
Marigolds. You only need to sow them once.

Alchemilla I only got rid of when the garden was relandscaped. Ditto a mint which some plank had planted in the actually soil.

Nowadays I have a thuggish hardy geranium. I'll forgive it though because it's stunning. And flowers for 6 months solid.

Anemones. Bugger to get establish but once the do they are sods to control. Again, it's a good job I like them.

Verbena self seeds here but it's pretty easy to take out the babies and give them away. I do love it.

Nepeta 6 hills giant is an absolute thug. Grows inches in a week. Prefer it's smaller cousins!

@FuzzyPuffling

Perhaps what we need is a "ThugSwap"...one man's meat being another's poison!

Yes we do!

I can offer verbascum. They self seed everywhere.

I get loads of leaves, and precious few flowers. Crocosmia needs sun for loads of flowers.