Struggling with the Bishop

    In Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson (more on it here), Colonel Weatherhead engages in annual "struggles with the Bishop". He refers, of course, to Bishop's Weed (bishop weed) or ground elder, a pernicious thing with which I've been struggling, too.
     This may be invasive and almost impossible to eradicate, but it's a lot prettier than the other objects of my struggles yesterday - a blocked waste pipe, overflowing washing machine and flooded kitchen floor were not in the least photogenic.

Comments

[blackbird]

Oh dear. Well tomorrow should be better on the kitchen front but the bishop weed will take more than that.

I have what I think is common ground elder which has taken over in a corner of my very small garden. What had been one plant became a carpet without me noticing. I'm pulling it out but also cutting off the flowers that form every day (it seems). I had noticed on my walk today the similarity between my 'flowers' and the flowers on a patch of bishop weed. You have provided the connection. Bishop weed is just a fancier pest.

If I manage to eradicate my ground elder- I'll let you know how I did it.

[BooksPlease]

I'm "struggling with the Bishop" in my garden and he is winning! I have tried digging it up and weed killer both to little effect. It seems to have gone but always manages to return later. It's strangling everything in sight.

[Barbara]

Bad luck on the washing machine!

I think ground elder is pretty well indestructible. I had a lot in my old garden, none here. I saw a mass in a hedgerow the other day and it did look pretty, like cow parsley.

[Kristina]

This weed looks really pretty - you could even pretend that it belongs in the garden :) Oh well, weeding is not a plesant job, but at least you can delay it, not like cleaning flooded kitchens or unbloking pipes (had that problem a few weeks ago and decided that I couldn't be a plumer - somehow this pipe 'treasure' hunting stinks too much...).

[Mr Cornflower]

Is Bishop Weed a name found mainly in Scotland? Perhaps a sly presbyterian dig...

[Avice]

This is possibly my most hated plant in the trinity of invasive species against which I'm doing battle at the moment. The other two are garlic mustard and barberry. It arrived in our neck of New England as a ground cover and I guess one could say that it succeeded because it's even rampant in wooded areas.... We have resorted to spraying in wilidsh bits after weeding out the garlic mustard and after the spring ephemerals have died back. In the garden, unremitting vigilance is my motto.

In re, the name: I have also heard it called goutweed.

[probablyjane]

I am besieged from two sides by Russian vine so every now and again I head for the end of my garden to reenact some late 20th century European history.

[Susie Vereker]

If you have ground elder in your hedges you're stuck with it, I reckon. I am, anyway. When I first moved here I didn't realise it was a weed and let it spread further. Oh dear. But I did eradicate it from one flower bed with a systemic weedkiller.
What's worse is that I deliberately planted an arum italicum which now behaves like a weed in my garden. It's all over and impossible to eradicate. It even grows on the bonfire where I've tried to burn it.
It has an Award of Garden Merit but I say never ever plant this one.
Sorry I missed the book this month, Cornflower.

[rosie]

I seem to remember that we have the Romans to blame for introducing Ground Elder to the British Isles. And I've heard of people using it to make winde, but can't say I like the sound of it. (Elderflower champagne is one thing, but ground elder wine?)

I do love Miss Buncle's Book, though.