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 have a few of these thugs in my garden, but the one that drives me to distraction is lamium galeobdolon (archangel), which arrived as a tiny plant from my parents’ garden and is now all over mine. Its one virtue is that bees love it.

Picture of my euphorbia, which seem to grow like crazy in my garden. I dug at least 10 of them out of the flower border already and still have loads. Also, lots of old fence post stumps which I don’t know how I’m going to remove - anyone got any ideas other than digging?

That looks like E. characias, which I don't have trouble with as I'm growing it in the shade, which it doesn't like. In fact, I don't think I've got any left. It probably lasted about 15 years on a N wall, before being swamped by E griffithsii "Fireglow" and a Royal Fern

I find euphorbias come and go. Several have died on me over the years - most recently Ascot Rainbow - but some like robbiae are unstoppable.

Olivia - are the stumps wooden or concrete? Unless they're hugely in the way, I'd be inclined to let them be and hope (if wooden) they'll disintegrate over time.

@MereDintofPandiculation thank you for the ID - I’m keeping a list and going to label them up at some point this summer!

@MoonlightInVermont - the fence posts are rusty metal on 3 sides, with concrete and stones in the middle. I’ve dug down a foot and they’re still there. I don’t mind the ones near the fence, but I’d like to put roses and other flowers I won’t want to move near the ones that are towards the front of the border, so I think it’s now or never to try and get them out. As a last resort I could call someone in as we have a fence that needs replacing, and lots of rubble in one corner of the garden that needs to go eventually!

Wild garlic. It’s a fucking absolute and utter bastard, it spreads so fast and is nigh on impossible to get rid of unless you hoe it. Every year late spring I’m strimming it out, and the stink has to be experienced to believed.

Olivia - Yes, in that case it sounds as if you need to hire some muscle to heave it all out!

Bluntness has just reminded me of the allium triquetrum that I bought at a plant sale. "It's so pretty" the vendor said, and so it is, but it self-seeds everywhere and I put it in the green waste bin for fear it'll recycle through the compost heap. There's some in the lawn now I need to remove.

Vinca and japanese anemones are thugs here. I can kill virtually any plant with little effort but these thrive and smother!

Ah, Japanese anemone is like my wayward child. I feel I should disapprove of its delinquent behaviour, but I love it too much to get cross!

Oh I love foxgloves! Such bullies though. But I sprinkle the seeds everywhere!

We bought an ornamental (so I thought) grass from the car boot. It had these lovely little white pods on it. Very pretty. Obviously seed pods. Planted it and then had grass growing everywhere in the flowerbed. I'm still pulling it up when I see it.

My dad has bamboo (not clump forming), rambling roses and various climbers (Virginia fecking creeper) that are insane. He never gardens. His bamboo has destroyed the patio, next door are pissed off. I try to get round there every summer to chop it all back but bugger me it is awful.

Oh and lastly, my neighbour has cherry trees. Fucking hell. The seeds just plant themselves in my lawn and I'm forever digging them up.

@OliviaRwhite It's not a firm id - which would require close-ups of the flower. But E. characias is the most commonly grown of the big grey leaved ones. So probably label it Euphorbia ?characias

I put it in the green waste bin for fear it'll recycle through the compost heap This is why I'd never buy Council compost even if our Council were selling it - I know industrial scale composting is meant to kill everything, but equally I know I'm not the only one who gives the Council garden waste collection anything that I don't fancy putting on my own heap.

@TheFootIsDoooooown Are you sure they're seeds? Cherry are notorious for sending up suckers from their roots. That's why they can appear so readily in a lawn, whereas a dense lawn would usually be enough to stifle most seedlings.

I have no solution. Chopping them off simply encourages more.

@Harrysmummy246

Sycamore seedlings, aquilegias (if they were more interesting colours, would let them be), Spanish bluebells, green alkanet, field bindweed, ivy, monbretia. Just about knocked the horse tails on the head now.

I have just removed 2 wheelbarrow loads of Spanish bluebells from the garden. I found myself thinking that it's a shame they're not edible, they look so like fat spring onions, or little leeks, I could have made a gallon of soup out of the buggers.

I have bought (amongst other things) a packet of Nigella seeds. How foolish am I? (I once saw a flowerbed with Nigella and Escholzia all mixed togther among other plants, and it looked really pretty).

My worst thug was the honeysuckle Halliana. It was such a brute that after it had taken over the back fence and the whole of one side of my garden, it developed serious thoughts of world domination and has been spotted 5 houses along in the houses that back onto mine, so it's in the next street. At least it's not mine any more, it's all gone from my garden.

My parents brought me a cutting of a very pretty variegated ivy called Goldheart. It behaved very nicely for years, then suddenly, one summer, it shot along a 10' flowerbed and up the wall of the house to first floor level.

On the same visit, they brought a phlomis they'd propagated from one in their garden. I quite liked it when it was about 3' tall, but it quickly got to 6' and just got fatter and fatter. The more I hacked it back, the more the bastard grew. It completely obscured the window at one end of the bay. To add injury to insult, I seem to be allergic to it and whenever I pruned it, I got a dreadful rash on my arms and sometimes on my face.

It was after I finally got rid of the phlomis that the Goldheart ivy took its place.

My neighbour thinks my clematis montana is a thug. It grows all over my garage roof and spreads into her garden. But I love it (it's the pink one, with bronze leaves), it's so pretty and smells fabulous,

We have herb robert, but it's manageable. The valerian, otoh, has made cracks in the drive and seems immortal.

My latest bugbear is goosegrass/sticky willy (or, my mate's name for its burrs, green stickums). Not only is it invasive, it bloody gives me an itchy rash, like the phlomis did.

Still, it makes a change from bindweed.

TheFootIsDoooooown Are you sure they're seeds? Cherry are notorious for sending up suckers from their roots. That's why they can appear so readily in a lawn, whereas a dense lawn would usually be enough to stifle most seedlings.

Definitely seeds. I've dug them up when they are new and it's definitely a seed growing. Little bastards. Our lawn is pretty crap.

I've just filled 8 sacks of ivy from two flowerbeds. Pretty sure I'm going to be pulling up the bits I've missed all summer.

Brambles, bindweed and old man’s beard are the worst in my garden, but I also have the native large grassy thing mentioned earlier ( name gone out of my head ). Also the Bear’s Britches definitely needs a cull.
Oh and creeping buttercup.

Native Sedge ( Carex Pendula) is what i was thinking of, although they do pull up fairly easily when small. I do sometimes get it all out but next door have it as does the field behind, so it always reappears.

@SirVixofVixHall

Brambles, bindweed and old man’s beard are the worst in my garden, but I also have the native large grassy thing mentioned earlier ( name gone out of my head ). Also the Bear’s Britches definitely needs a cull. Oh and creeping buttercup.

Carex pendula, pendulous sedge?

Damn, should have read the whole thread before replying

Are there any ornamental grasses that don't self-seed or spread in other ways?

Ground elder - kept at bay with sheets of cardboard topped with mulch

@Knittedfairies

I'll add crocosmia to that list. And until we had to have the house underpinned we regularly had passionflower shoots creeping up a bookcase in the dining room. It hasn't reappeared; a very expensive way to get rid of the problem though!

We willingly planted this last year because we saw it at the garden centre and thought it looked nice. We have been excessively warned that we will regret this for many years to come now - in our defence we are pretty novice gardeners with a suddenly large garden and we bought far too many plants and flowers on a whim last year that we are now patiently waiting to see if they survived the winter - and when we should start the great pruning on most of them. The garden is also overrun with Spanish bluebells that I have spent weeks digging up now .... and bindweed. So much bindweed.

@tinkywinkyshandbag

Ground elder - kept at bay with sheets of cardboard topped with mulch

Oh we have this too! It's so frustrating