[julietmaria]

We have recently moved house and our lawn and very neglected vegtable beds are absolutely covered in ground elder. Oh dear I know this is serious and cannot face the prospect of digging every single bit of it out.  It covers at the moment about 20 ft square.  What should I do?   I was not going to plant any veg in the vegtable beds as there is too much gardening to be done else where and hubby would kill me.  But I was hoping to rotovate them in the autumn to start next year.    And the lawn!  It has smothered the grass.
Thanks to all
Juliet

[DavidT]

Use Glyphosate on the veg garden and Verdone Extra on the lawns. You will probably need to give it all 2 or even 3 treatments over the next 6 months or so, but you should, at least have control of the problem.

[Christine]

Don't use a rotovator. Please don't. You'll just get 43 times as much because you'll cut the roots up and every bit sprouts.

[Hobnails]

Ground Elder is a particularly pernicious, deep rooted and persistent weed.
Lawrence Hills - the founder of Garden Oragnic as it is now called- suggested planting
Tagetes Minuta alongside the weed. Apparently secretions from the Tagetes kill off ground elder and are said also to have a beneficial effect on eelworm - should tat also be a problem.
Fulld etails are on the Garden Organic website who also sell the seeds.
Tagetes Minuta is so a tall growing plant ( 2 metres) with tiny flowers and is of the same family as other variteies of the same name but not to be confused with them in regard to the properties claimed for it.

[tosca100]

I've had dealings with this before....I know what I'd do...CRY!

[hillbilly]

DONT DESPAIR!! 
I've lived with ground elder for 11 years and have developed a number of approaches. I have bought glyphosate and fully intended to use it but just never... quite..... did!
In veg beds it might be a good idea to kill it (mine dont have it thank the Lord!) especially if you're not growing for a year. Another option might be to cover/exclude light for two years but this sounds a bit extreme. Perhaps someone else will have ideas. I know the areas I cultivate regularly it never gets a hold.
On the lawn it sounds as though this has been allowed to grow long. Where we mow regularly all the ground elder has disappeared. Perhaps it would return if we stopped mowing. I suggest you just mow rather than using the bottle. Keep it quite short for the first couple of years but we now let some areas grow spring wildflowers and the elder has not returned in five years.
In borders I have mostly tried to dig it out in small manageable areas. each area is then planted with Geranium machorrizum which appears to really inhibit the elder. Any elder leaves that appear get the three 'R's - Ruthlessly Regularly Removed! I then gradually introduce the plants I want by removing chunks of the geranium as and when.
In wilder areas I've had some sucess with using a 1m circle of landscape fabric and planting shrubs through them - partic good are species roses (dont try the wussy kind), viburnums and amelanchier. Or just appreciate the plant! Ground elder is actually quite pretty - good ground cover (!), scented, umbelliferous flowers that attract hoards of hoverflies and the birds like the seeds. I let it do its thing in selected areas.
I also have one small patch that I actually feed! It produces long succulent shoots in late March/early April that taste like spinach long before I have much fresh greens in the veg garden. Cook it longer than spinach and be really generous with the butter!

Sorry if this is a bit long but I remember how daunting it was at first and really hope that some of the above gives you hope!!

[aelf]

nightmare! I have it all over my plot. I now accept that I will never be completely rid of it and can only keep it down with constant weeding and hoeing.

But I don't let it get me down #sob#   

[Kristen]

At a previous house we pretty much eradicated it from established flower and shrub borders which were infested with it.

We used small hand sprayers with Glyphosate mix to spray the ground elder (when it was growing vigorously) every week or two. We assumed we would also lose a few plants - it was a large area and not practicable to be 100% careful to only spray the Ground Elder.

After one year there was hardly any Ground Elder to be seen, the following year a few shoots appeared, but that was it. Thereafter we only had to deal with invasion from surrounding areas.

Personally I think Ground Elder is more easily dealt with the Bind Weed and Mares Tail.