Our gardening expert on the pervasive weed with its lovely white flowerheads
There is a front garden near me that is so staggeringly lovely that I made my girlfriend take a picture when the car stopped at traffic lights. It takes a few seconds to realise that it’s nature’s work rather than the owner’s. Oxeye daisies and foxgloves wave above a sea of ground elder, resplendent in flower. For a second it might make you reconsider that pernicious plant: its flowerhead is as good as any other umbel we lust over, such as Orlaya grandiflora or Ammi majus.
Of course, we don’t actually plant ground elder because it plants itself and then rapidly takes over, sending those thin, wiry rhizomes (underground stems, not roots) in between every other plant’s base and thoroughly beds itself in. The rhizomes are brittle, so any attempt at extraction by forking them out will leave fragments behind that will quickly sprout; so if you have it – well, you have it for life.
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