How can I eradicate Ground Elder

Glyphosphate - start treating it when its growing strongly next year, spray or treat the leaves. Leave, re treat when it recovers. It works - I've got rid of a patch 6 x 6 in two gardens next door to one another. Just takes a bit of time.

As Bamboo says, glyphosphate most often seen in the garden centres as Roundup. I would give them a spray now whilst there is still a little growth left this year. It won't eradicate the ground elder but will start to weaken it for next year.

Oh and more than half of us are not gents Joem :-)

Re that, Moongrower, when I was working in an architects' office (3 female architects, 1 male, 2 male bosses, 3 female secretaries) one of the bosses came in one day and the only people in were all female - he walked round the office and said memorably "there's no people in today, where are they all?" I never let him forget it...

Grrr Bamboo I wouldn't have either... A silly/serious suggestion for the blasted ground elder - flame burner or whatever it is they are called... I know we have one. Probably napalm would be better though...

Joem, sorry to have hijacked your question - I'm not offended by your "gents" thing, but wanted to tell the story above anyway;-))

I had never got rid of ground elder completey and some years ago when a well known gardenening programme contributor said 'you wont get rid of it all so live with it' I did and this year I havent found any. Got a lot of mares tail though!

ah well guess we all have to deal with something!

You can't do any of those things if it's growing wildly amongst your plants which happened to me in our last garden , the only way I could get rid of it was on my hands and knees removing every last piece of root , it gave me nightmares , not to mention an already bad back it dosn't help if you have a neighbouring garden overrun with it either , we moved from there only to find that this garden is surrounded by Mares tail and has spread down one side of the drive i'm hoping it dosn't cross the drive into the main garden . Grrrrr .......

Amy I do so simpathise with you about Ground Elder and Marestail.
Now you have weeded it by hand in my experience it will be easier to use a spot weeder, pull up as they appear and at least keep them down..
What I have found with Marestail is the more I pull it out the weaker it gets so by mid summer not much at all till next year! I also have tall ferns as weeds come up every year no matter what I do but they are getting less each year.

Thanks for the encouragment Drc.. it does tend to get you down , it's a constant battle .. we put some old carpet squares which were given to us down one side of the drive and on top of that some bark thinking it would stop the marestail ,,, we planted shrubs along it , it still pushes it's way through , I have consentrated on the smaller patches near the rear fence and there does seem to be less at the moment .. we have a field next to us with brambles , they started being at the top end of the field and have now reached our end , the birds eat them ,consequently we have lots of little brambles growing in the garden , I am pulling them up every day ... it must be heaven to have a garden with none of these annoying things .. I shouldn't grumble , I love the garden really !