a french guest

cool thanks

hope I'll be able to work out whether that's it or not from a photo
I think I did see some in the woods somewhere last summer, but can't remember where exactly

 

well that's why i didn't recognise the "french" variety - ground elder looks quite different in Russia! It doesn't grow as a ground cover, it's usually at least up to your waist, and one usually knows it by its flowers. I did double-check and it's the same species as the UK one but just looks different. Oh, and i've never ever seen the variegated form over there.

 

this reminds me.. When my parents first got their allotment back in the early 90s, it was all overgrown with quackgrass. There weren't even particularly many other weeds there because it smothered them all. It took 2 years and six of us to dig up the allotment, lift out all roots and virtually sieve the soil through our hands to before we could plant anything but trees. We didn't have any soil sieves, and Roundup hadn't yet reached Russia. That was toil worthy of Sisiphus I tell you!

 

I`d get rid of it full stop. It may already have rooted in the ground. Get the weedkiller out PDQ.:D

 

Took it out today. I only planted it last week and the soil it was in is very soft so it was easy to get all the roots out. I'm pretty sure I got all of them as i was really careful. It's now in a pot in a corner where light never shines (which should stop it from flowering and spreading seed, where its old pot used to be is shady too and it's never bloomed so far), and the pot sits on block paving, a good 3 or 4 foot away from any soil so if it finds a way to spread beyond the pot now I'd be very surprised.

 

Prepare to be surprised then, it`s on a par with mint for escaping.

 

Am still apologising for having given a cutting of this evil plant to a freind of mine several years ago - he still cannot get rid of it (i've moved house and left the plant behind). I'm with Dai - get rid............

 

um.. well in the previous few years that it grew in a pot it's made no attempt to escape, in fact it never even fully colonised the pot itself. Even allowed some other weeds to grow there. The pot was sitting at the back of a pebbly drive by the way, and the pebbles have accumulated some soil underneath over the years and it never even spread into that soil. So I'm hoping...

 

But it`s tasted freedom now.