Ground elder, what can I do?

[GurbangulyJones]

I share a long border with my neighbour who does not care especially about the ground elder, and I can see his point of view to be honest as it's not necessarily unattractive along the side of our boundary and he's not much of a gardener. However it's doing what it does and I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle to keep it from completely overwhelming my side. The roots are all tangled up in some of my nicer plants and I'm just doing temporary control and digging it out where I can but it's a losing battle. Is there anything I can do to in terms of planting to fight back? If I can't eradicate it (and I don't think I can unless he decides to deal with it from his side too) is there anything I can plant that might crowd it out or at least hide it? The bed currently is mostly ferns, hostas and a couple of rhododendrons, some anemones and hardy geraniums, all doing well.

I feel your pain. Mexican tagetes supposedly produce a root compound that keeps it at bay so you could try planting those around it to keep it at bay.

I've also seen it planted rather beautifully with Japanese anemones which looked rather lovely with the frothy white of the ground elder (possibly at wisley?), I think general advise is to find equally thuggish plants which can hold their own with it.. alternatively it is edible and many animals will make short work of it (chickens and rabbits given enough time.. pigs.. goats) but obviously if it's tangled with plants you want that won't help!

We've found pulmonaria, some lamiums and geranium macros can out-thug ground elder in our garden.

You can eat the young leaves.

I think I would be leaning over his fence under cover of darkness and spraying his with the evil but effective glyphosphate.

And carefully painting leaves of any that comes under your fence.

Then give him cuttings of some better ground cover.

I eradicated a full border of ground elder from my Mum’s new house with digging and targeted weed killer. I know it’s bad but it enabled 20 years of glorious bee-friendly planting.

We’ve got the same problem and I’ve planted sweet woodruff which seems to be working. Looks pretty too.

If you're really serious about eradication, I think I'd get some decent metal raised bed edging and bury it about a foot deep along your boundary (I've not seen ground elder roots go deeper than that), to stop the ground elder from spreading across to your land. Then it's a case of digging every last root out and being militant every time you see a leaf. It can be done, but it takes persistence.

I feel your pain, my neigbbour is similar (but the issue is brambles and bindweed).

Agree with Poppins2016, you need a physical barrier along the fence. Bury it as deep as you can and then clear your side as best you can. Deal with bits that regrow as soon as you see them, this works like regular mowing as ground elder doesn’t like that either. With small plants it is worth digging them up, clearing the roots of ground elder and replanting and use weed killer to spot treat anything you can’t deal with any other way. I am gradually clearing a large neglected garden of this and this is what I have found works.

It’s taken me 5 years to eradicate ground elder. It was everywhere in my garden, originating from one boundary, and had choked everything else. You can’t dig it out. The tiniest nodule remaining will regenerate. I treated rigorously with glyphosphate. I still get the odd bit popping up but keep it at bay by using the gel on the leaves.