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?

Oh no really ? I have ancient and huge Sycamore trees. There are horses in nearby fields but not on my land. I wonder how far the seeds can carry ?

We have squirrels too but I don’t mind them so much. They do eat the bird food like it is going out of fashion but they always plant me at least one new horse chestnut every year and provide plenty of entertainment for the cats 🙄

There are two types of weeds that drive me nuts. I don't know what they are called but one I call umbrella plants because their leaves look like little umbrellas or parasols. They have solid woody tuber like roots and bloomin' spread everywhere. Hate them! I dug out a massive clump of them today. They are deceptively delicate looking above ground and huge and hard to get rid of below. I also hate those things that pretend to be your alliums or montbresia but are actually a horrible weed and spread everywhere. The wet weather is great for blitzing them at the moment.

Lemon balm as a pest? No! Bloody love the stuff and use it a lot in herb tea.

I had a ground elder omelette yesterday, it was lovely!

I've been out in the garden today. The ground elder is sprouting nicely - I am determined to eat it now, as is the wild garlic, and the wild strawberries.
I need to tidy up the bramble stems (pull them back through next door's fence) and cut down last year's wild raspberry canes.
Thug flower wise the buttercups are coming and there's loads of forget me nots and wild geums.

Would like to see a photo of your umbrella plant because I can't reconise it from your description.

Euphorbia...the people who we bought the house from let it go rampant and although I do actually quite like it it spreads like buggery.
Also hellebores. Again, they are very pretty but they're everywhere.

I don't think there is a trellis that would stand up to these stems - and they really are 6m lengths. I know the stems fruit in their second year but having tried it, it's really not sustainable to leave them until that point.

Another pet hate is hairy bittercress. Always catches me out and makes me jump when the bastards pop their seeds at you!

Ground elder here!
Every spring I try to get it all but is a sly little bugger and creeps around.
I can't move my old bones without wincing and complaining tonight after two afternoons digging it up.

Anyone with wild garlic up for laying a clump to me?
I can't access the places it grows locally anymore because of dodgy knees and ankles.

Obviously I will recompense you fully ☺️😉☺️

Nasturtiums here. Sprouting everywhere!!

When I first moved in there was a really pretty weed growing with tiny white flowers.

I was influenced by a friend who assured me weeds are just a name given to plants growing in the wrong place. If I liked the look of it I should keep it blah blah blah.

The little bastard seeded everywhere. It's taken over my bloody garden. Two years on and I still spend half the summer pulling it up,

Do you really want some to plant? Then you'll have ground elder and wild garlic to keep on top of?!

We have wild garlic in a woodland area of our garden and it has now spread (which we are quite happy about) but only within its own clump and over several years.

We've been careful up until now just to use the leaves in an attempt to nurture it.

Fortunately even if it does get out of control where it is it wouldn't be a problem.

We have 4 acres and 3 children under 6 so I don't think I'll ever fully tame most of my garden but I have:

Herb Robert, nettles, docks, creeping buttercup (my current bane), hogsweed and marestail. For the last 3 years I have cracked down on one of these and got a little bit on top of it. The docks are going to be horrific though as the newly felled forest out the back was just full of them last year and every single one went to seed. By my count that is 80 years of 92 million seeds to contend with.

I am currently trying to nurture and encourage the self seeding nature of fox gloves, aquilegia, forget me nots and what I'm hoping is Jacobs ladder (as opposed to Valeria).

I was also wanting wild garlic. I was looking online to buy some the other day! One man's trash..

Eleventy million sycamore seedlings here too, I try to pull some out every day.

My current battle is violets. Very pretty but spreading everywhere, including in the lawns.

I was wondering how you could confuse the two, but I presume you havent had them flower yet. That’s a leaf similarity that I hadn’t picked up on!

I don't know about wild garlic but, I believe, 3 cornered leek have evolved seeds that are attractive to ants who collect them and take them to their nests, helping the sodding stuff spread. Which explains why it's suddenly appeared growing along the edges of paving stones some distance from the original clumps.

Hmm I wonder if I can make a bit of money by selling wild garlic bulbs online....

Wood Avens. Sneaky yellow bastard.

I believe it is illegal to purposely plant wild garlic.

Surely not illegal to purposely plant it on your own land. It'll surely be like rhododendrons where its illegal to plant them unless it's in your own garden.

Bronze celandine bought from a garden centre, now rampaging across borders and the lawn, Spanish Bluebells, Japanese Anaemone, a very pretty blue flowered plant again from the garden centre that self seeds absobloodylutely everywhere with really deep tenacious roots 🤬
Garden centres have a lot to answer for in my garden!

Three cornered leek is an invasive alien and covered by legislation. I don’t know of any legislation that bans planting of a native plant, such as wild garlic

Yep, we have 4 huge scots pine trees overhanging our garden which are planted in our neighbour's garden. Our garden is regularly covered in pine needles which don't decompose so have to be picked up, and aren't "sucked up" from those leave sucker thingies either, so it's hands & knees job to get them up. Then pine cones a few times per year too which also have to be picked by hand. I'd happily pay to get the damn things chopped down but there's a TPO on them!