The bane of my life in the garden now

[Catname]

Sycamore seedlings. Thousands of them!

I’ve only tackled the ones in the flowerbeds but I’ve pulled out loads, and then I go back the next day and there are more, and more, and more. They are quite easy to pull out when it’s just the seed leaves but once they develop the first proper leaf, they get such a hold, and I’m doing it by hand as I want to see which of my lovely plants has self seeded (as I cannot grow anything from seed myself it would seem). I’m concerned that the ones in the lawn will get a good hold before it’s dry enough to cut the grass and then I’ll have a forest 🥴

Does anyone else have a plant they despise as much as I do sycamores?

@Ethelswith & @wonkylegs it's in the field and neither the sheep nor the horses will touch it.

Squirrels and slugs. 🤬

Turns out I have herb robert as well. Japanese anemones are taking over a corner of my lawn, but I'm sort of letting them as they put on a great floral display, and are the last thing still in flower in the autumn.

Three cornered leek, had a tiny patch when we moved in. I blinked and it was everywhere. It has a pretty flower and I like the onion smell and it seems to have crowded out the marestail. I've thought about introducing some native bluebell and letting them fight it out.

Marestail, bastard stuff.

I don't mind herb Robert, the bullfinches eat it and it's easy enough to pull up. Lesser celandine appeared a few years ago, I don't mind that either. I've got wallflower self seeding everywhere, I haven't decided about that yet.

I have decided to accept the celandine and spanish bluebells as they're pretty and don't last very long or swamp other plants. And the vinca mostly stays in the bit where nothing else will grow so that's ok. Brambles, bindweed, creeping buttercup and docks are an endless battle.

But my hate is concentrated on creeping cinquefoil which is hell - it's the way if you miss a tiny bit of root it forms a huge ball in the soil so it's virtually impossible to get out, combined with the rate at which it sends out its evil tendrils.

Yes to sycamore seeds, masses of wild garlics that stinks, forget me nots and out of control ivy which has caused all the garden walls to fall apart. The roots and branches are more than 6" thick! The bricks aren't going to stay up very much longer. Recently bought house and the garden is out of control but will be lovely one day...I sometimes just stand there and wonder how I'll ever get on top of it. Oh and masses of brambles too....

Oh god wild garlic. We had a massive clump when we bought our house and I naively thought 'How nice! I can cook with it', but it grew bigger and bigger every year. Initially, I tried to keep it the same size, but because it spreads two ways - via seeds and via splitting of the bulb - it spread like wildfire.

So after a few years of fighting a losing battle against it DH and I declared war. For a whole weekend we dug and dug until we'd got it all up. The smell, after a while, made me want to throw up, but we kept going and now, maybe five years on, we only get a few appearing each spring. We wait until it flowers and then we know it's wild garlic and dig them out. Apparently, the seeds can live in the soil for up to six years, so I'm hoping that this may be the last year of it.

Sticky willy / cleavers / goosegrass is a pain if you let it set seed. On the plus side, Sticky Willy is such a good name.

Geranium robertianum, a hardy geranium

But my hate is concentrated on creeping cinquefoil but it’s a beautiful flo!

Flower

I am deliberately encouraging many of the mentioned menace plants... I may even try eating the ground elder. You should all grow your brambles. There's nothing like blackberries straight off the plant.

My dislikes are couch grass and field maple, both of which are merrily springing now.

Oh I do love an Oak tree though - but I know what you mean about acorns, we had a beech that dropped beech nuts everywhere, we cut it down in the end as it was so bad.

@Abzs one year I experimented with leaving the brambles so we could get fruit but they are so well established they were sending out stems that forming 6m long arches which were starting to root. So now I hack them back as much as I can and go and pick my blackberries from various local spots where they have more space to run rampant!

Same with the creeping cinquefoil. Absolute nightmare plant, spreads faster than I can pull it out.

I have a sycamore but to be honest it's the three cornered leeks that are driving me mad!!

The 6ft arches are the first year stems. In the second year they produce fruit. If you tied the branches to a trellis so their tips didnt reach the ground they wouldn’t root

Sycamore seedlings, bindweed and geums. Not the pretty ones, the wild herb Bennet. Job for today is to weed it out again before the shrubs take over and I can't spot them.

I also seem to have an infestation of herb Robert, although I find him prettier so am less ruthless.

Squirrels. They ruin everything. Tulip flower heads bitten off. Seedlings dug up. Why? Why? WHY?

Death to all squirrels. May they burn in hell for all of eternity.

It's not illegal to cull grey squirrels @ILoveMontyDon. Just saying.

Interesting.
Squirrels and a trillion sycamore seedlings here. The sycamores really are worse this year.

😂They are a bloody menace. Considering getting a gun. I can't believe there was a time that I considered them to be cute. They don't go for the Spanish blue bells do they? Oh no! Only the nice expensive ones.

Sycamore seeds - I've been pulling up for two days now but seem to be multiplying.

I must plant more of them, I haven’t had any seed.
I also get Herb Robert everywhere but don’t mind that, creeping buttercup I stupidly left as I love the flowers and I have regretted that ever since as it is now bloody everywhere.
But the Bindweed is my nemesis. It would cover my entire garden if I didn’t weed it, it is a constant battle.

Be thankful you don't have a horse. Sycamore seeds and seedlings can cause atypical myopathy but don't always contain enough of the toxin so it's like Russian roulette and the fatality rate is very high.

Sycamore seedlings. We missed one behind the shed and when we demolished the shed we found a 5ft TREE. Also brambles. Next door doesn’t garden and I have a monster bramble running about under my lawn. I’ve really battled it this weekend. Also to the PP that said acorns, where I used to work had a massive acorn tree and we had to go out and sweep the decking. I considered a hard hat at one point because they hurt 😂.