The battle is continuing.

Well done, Eileen. Your very hard work has proved fruitful. Some beautiful spring flowers and colours in your garden.
It has been lovely weather wise this week, sunny today with the odd flurry of snow. Very bitter though.

You’ve done so well with the couch grass removal. Your garden looks great, so much colour.

Wow you have worked so hard. I haven't seen that angle across the back of the pond before - lovely lot of pots there! The chinodoxa is one of my Spring favourites - beautiful! You deserve a nice rest now!

Your conscientious attack on the couch grass should pay dividends. You have done really well, in cold winds too I think.
You have some lovely plants in your garden. I really like aubretia and the way yours is growing is perfect. Aubretia doesn't do well in our garden and we can't understand why that is.
Your Chinodoxa is a very pretty colour.
Hope the cold wind eases you off soon.

I admire the couch grass onslaught, my bugbear is ground elder! I moved some Achillea gold plate from the front garden up to the field as I hate throwing out plants, so most end up on the field edges. While planting some Leucanthemum up there (another that spreads like wildfire) I discovered that the Achillea was growing nicely, but had the g. elder mixed in with it. I just don't need to spread that where it isn't, so out they came and did end up on the bonfire sadly. Sometimes you just have to throw things out. I envy the Aubretia which I would love and think is looks stunning flowing over edges, but the Peacocks eat it as fast as I plant it, however much I try to hide it!

Thank you for your kind words.
Honeysuckle when we moved into this property 24yrs ago this border was full of ground elder. I double dug and sieved the soil twice and left it fallow for 2 years so any g.e that appeared was easy to spot and remove.
the couch grass has come in from the 'lawn'. I dread to think what the next pernicious weed will be but hopefully it will be another 20 yrs before it becomes a problem.

my eldest brother has g.e in his back garden and if I am given any plants from this part I thoroughly wash roots and pot them up and quarantine them for at least a year. just to be on the safe side. So far I have only missed one pip amongst an astrantia. the leaves do look similar which is a problem.

Lovely to see all that colour when the weather is so variable. You are going to have plenty of frogs if they all survive.

they wont all survive there are about 15 fish in there and they will enjoy fresh meat!
Hoping the tadpoles will eat some of the algae before they get eaten themselves.

With me it is ground elder too. I kill each leaf when I see it at this time of year. By mid summer I can't see it so I don't bother.

Your garden is looking good thanks to all your hard work. What will you do with all that dug-out Couch grass, our domestic tip is closed. You have much that is more advanced than mine, the Clematis alpina, the Lathyrus and no tadpoles at all.

I am keeping my eye on the rockery for any couch grass that I might have missed. So far so good Linda.

Thankfully we still have council collections of garden rubbish despite the tips being closed Siris. One of my ex pupils is on the bin lorry so he empties the bin then I refill the bin with 2 bags and he then empties that. He was one of my 'bad boys' and actually said he doesn't know how I put up with him as his mum threw him out when he left school. He has done well for himself considering his background.

What a difference in the border after getting rid of the couch grass. I hope it doesn't grow back.
Your pots on the wall are interesting and it's nice you can see them from your conservatory.

Yes, and I’ve been digging out GElder today. You’re doing a great job there with that Couch grass! We shall all have far less weeds this year...more time to tackle them!

Gosh yes !!! you do have a lot of pots, you must be winning the battle with that couch grass, well done, armchair gardening for me Seaburn, I'm being good and staying indoors as I have a bit of a scratchy throat and blocked sinuses, always happens every springtime when I start with the sowing, think its the new compost, was beautiful last week, short sleeves for gardening, now its sweater time and heating back on indoors, sigh.....

haha yes I do don't I.
It has been really cold the last 3 days but I have still been out and about in the garden and greenhouse. I have had a slightly chesty cough for 3 weeks now and I am wondering if it is the compost or even pollen starting hay-fever off. I had though it was the wadding in the quilt I was doing. But I've not done any sewing since but its not gone away.

Sorry you are having to deal with GE. The variegated one is often for sale as a good ground cover. The RHS book says spread - unlimited!

Regarding Ground Elder. At an Open Garden a couple of years ago I saw Variegated G.E. in a large decorative pot. It looked fantastic. Hope it didn't get out of the drainage hole!

Yes Siris! I've seen a picture of that plant recently on a nursery website somewhere! Honestly...will we never learn! I waged war with it yesterday so am feeling a bit better today! ;)

Such backbreaking work SB not an easy job but you got through it. I do like the Chinodoxa it may take a long sleep but well worth waiting for.

Well you deserve a medal, certainly for perseverance alone....I wouldn’t have the energy now, sadly....
Your garden is looking very spring like....love Aubretia, such a cheerful plant at this time of the year, and the pink Chinodoxa is so pretty.....
No tadpoles here, but at least we have tiddlers! I will settle for that!

I bought the variegated ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria 'Variegatum') over two years ago and its pathetic, its never really got going.

Interesting Dawn...so it really is as they claim..non invasive. I still wouldn’t risk it though! Lol!

I think in a more basic soil as opposed to an enriched flower bed it behaves quite well. But like you I wouldn't want it in my relatively small garden.

Does anyone know of any ground cover plant that will smother Ground Elder? It gets its roots into all my plants! I keep having to dig them out, clean them up and replant! Its positively malignant!

pachysandra is a good dense plant and its evergreen, whether it will smother GE not sure but certainly nothing seems to grow through it in my little patch.

Thanks SBG. I have one plant of Pachysandra. I will go and take a look at it, and if there’s no G Elder in it, that might be the answer I need!

Karen, I have a ground elder problem near the brook, I will never beat it so I’ve planted geranium, lots, the vigorous ones, they hide it and the leaves are similar, works for me.

Catching up with blogs .. love the wriggly tadpoles !

only have of the to do section left as I have been out there most of today. Taddys have all hatched too :o)

Well done tadpoles and well done you.

We have some variegated GE in one of our borders.....so far so good!