Weed or not? Keep or go?

[tothelefttotheleft]

It's everywhere in my borders!

It’s pretty but it’s the very devil for spreading if it likes your garden. In the twilight zone between weed and plant, I prefer it to bare earth but take it out ruthlessly when it gets too much.

It's periwinkle, great ground cover but spreads like a bastard!

No, not Periwinkle, it’s a Common Dog Violet, sometimes classed as a weed (if you don’t want it!). Loads in my garden, and they have tenacious roots, so difficult to dig up.

I love dog violets, I'm happy for them to spread everywhere. Depends if you like them or not as to whether you want to keep them.

Agree this is a common dog violet.
I've let it spread as ground cover in certain patches in my garden - I think it's rather pretty and very low maintenance.

Sorry, I need to start wearing my glasses!

Thankyou everyone.

I love violets. More than happy for them to spread anywhere they like in my garden.

I’ve been battling these for years, I dig millions up but they keep spreading faster than I can get rid of them. They are now growing through the lawn in places!

If I didn't stay on top of these they would take over my garden within about a year. They are very pretty, and are good for ground cover where other things don't grow - but you have to be very thorough in digging them out where you don't want them.

The flowers have a very effective seed dispersal mechanism that flings them far and wide.. www.teachertube.com/videos/seed-dispersal-by-exploding-plants-434290

I also read that ants help disperse them too.

I love seeing them pop up wherever, I’ve even got a small clump of white ones. They’re easily pulled up if in the wrong place.

Oh, I love these. I always thought of them as wallflowers. We let them grow anywhere. They're lovely ground cover, they're not a serious problem for anything we're trying to grow in terms of competition, and they'll be gone by midsummer and you can pull them out.

If we didn't let things like this grow through our lawn it would be 75% moss...

Vinca Major, horrible nasty, incredibly difficult to get rid of.

But it’s not, it’s dog violet as has already been established. Its flowers are not circularly symmetric, like those of Vinca

My bad, I should have put my specs on.

Sorry I was a bit snippy, but someone had already suggested Vinca and been corrected.

I corrected, because if someone had just read the OP and the latest post, they could have been misled.

Lucky me. I have vinca too!

My commiserations.

That sounds very pretty! My lawn is full of forget-me-nots this year. It looks lovely with the yellow buttercups. I will let them seed and then mow them away when they've finished, next month.