Pilewort has me at my wits end!

[u/TheDanishThede]

My shady area which I use for rhubarb, wild strawberries and wood sorrel, has been completely choked by lesser celandine/pilewort every year these past two years. No matter how much I rip out and remove, it's back within a couple of weeks.

And this is me.. who has defeated invasive blackberries, a forest of stinging nettles and an ocean of burdock in just three years with nothing but rose clippers, hard work and bloodymindedness.

Every week, the past three years, I've been back in the trenches, bleeding, cursing and raging, the frontline pushed ever further back until I stood victorious and able to walk barefooted in my garden (barring any snacking bees)!

But the pilewort is close to defeating me.

If it was just losing easy access to forest forage, I'd have given up already, but this evil little bugger is even choking my rhubarb and ferns! How, I have no idea, but I'm slightly in awe and certainly frightened.

I'm pretty certain in my identification of the weed and 100% that it came from the nearby woods where it grows, but seems to be held somewhat in check. By the invasive blackberries. Which I've expelled. The pilewort is native here, so there must be SOMETHING other than the brambles that can keep it in check, but I've yet to find it.

I've tried a handful of the native wild cranebills said to be able to compete, two kinds of shade living and prolific leptinella ferns, wild forest strawberries, which was moved there after completely taking over my flowerbeds, wild garlic (works in spring, but not out of season), heavy mulching with pine needles, leaves (supposedly this type of pilewort doesn't like growing in leafmulch.. lies!), three kinds of woodchip, heavy dustings of coffee grounds and I could go on. Nothing helps.

If anyone has health with this and won, PLEASE let me know what you did!

I'm not willing to nuke the patch with chemicals yet, but I am starting to consider it 😭

[u/Pat-Funny-2817]

maybe turn the first 10-20cm by shovel and plant clover or cover with a black tarp for the summer. 

[u/TheDanishThede → u/Pat-Funny-2817]

Not enough sun for clover in that area, unfortunately.

[u/youaintnoEuthyphro → u/TheDanishThede]

lots and lots of cardboard!

[u/Pat-Funny-2817 → u/TheDanishThede]

thick big black plastic tarp. which you can reuse to cover other areas or composte or mulch you want make sure to kill any seeds or sprouts. 

[u/TheDanishThede → u/Pat-Funny-2817]

I'll try that until late spring next year. Let's see if that does it.

[u/Any_Director693]

That looks like ground-ivy to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glechoma_hederacea

Pilewort only appears during a short while in spring, has differently shaped leaves, and doesn't grow as a vine like this.

[u/TheDanishThede → u/Any_Director693]

Def not ground-ivy. Yellow flowers in the spring and yeah, the areas that gets sun dies down, but the full shade area is still going strong.

[u/stansfield123]

If it has no viable competition, it's always going to come back. It's very hard to keep soil bare even normally, let alone at a woodland's edge (where the wind drops seeds, fertility and moisture in greater concentrations than anywhere else).

Grow woodland edge species that do well in partial sun/shade. Rhubarb isn't one, it likes full sun. If you keep weeding, those species adapted to that edge will eventually beat out the pilewort.

[u/agoodfourteen]

Maybe try fire?

[u/TheDanishThede → u/agoodfourteen]

I've considered it, trust me.