PlantFiles: Bishop's Weed, Goutweed, Ground Elder
Aegopodium podagraria

Yes, this can be invasive but it does make a beautiful lush ground cover. The flowers also look very attractive in bouquets. It is a nice plant for a bank that you do not want to mow.

Growing the "green" version of "Snow-On-The-Mountain" makes a bold statement about your personality - it's like shaving with a straight razor, when there are easier alternatives available.

One of only a handful of true "set it and forget it" plants out there.

Sadly, you'll have a hard time finding it, unless you are part of the small yet elite society of invasive plant lovers, known only as the "I.P.L."

This plant came with my property and I have been battling it ever since we moved in 6 yrs ago. Nothing has seemed to work....I decided to go with raised beds and hauled in 10 yds. of top soil. It has now invaded several of those beds! NEVER plant this stuff!!! I may have to move to be rid of it.

Could be Neutral only because it can look nice in some situations. Pretty flowers, solid groundcover (crowds other things out). Even total drought (ground cracked, virtually no rain for almost 2 months) can't kill it (it may die back and then leaf out again once it rains).

Incredibly invasive. You can weed it out of areas by repeated pulling, especially if you do it when the ground is soft. I have around 1/2-3/4 acre of it under trees; luckily in a woodland garden it kinda works, so long as you don't want anything else (shorter) there.

Positive: covers the ground. Reasonably attractive. Pretty flowers (helps to cut them after flowering). Unkillable.

Negative: spreads like crazy in loose/sandy soil. Smothers other plants up to ~12" tall. Roots break off (especially in hard/firm/packed soil) and sprout, even a year or more later. Unkillable.

I went around hitting some coming up in my mulch paths with roundup, along with some poison ivy. The ivy is dead. The Goutweed lost a leaf or two.

In loose soil, you can pull/sift it out of soil by hand, with work, and with lots of coming back to catch parts you missed.

Possible biological control: groundhogs. They love it. They have downsides, though. :-/

Definitely don't grow this plant. It is very, very invasive here in Massachusetts. This plant was introduced into my garden 14 years ago, so far I've contained it to a 2 ft x 2ft area but I cannot totally eradicate it. It came in attached to another plant via a division I received from a plant swap so I did not intentionally plant it!

On the list of invasive, prohibited plants in Massachusetts.

35 years ago, my Grandmother brought home one of these things and it took over the whole garden! My mother and I have battled this problem since 1983. I've tried round up, weed-be-gone, vinegar, gasoline, torch, torch+gasoline, and anything else you can imagine.

My aunt took something from our garden and got some bishops weed with it and now all of her neighbors have it,too!

Grandma's house and garden became a parking lot last fall, I'll check that lot later in the summer and let you know if ashphalt works against this evil creature!

My first home came with this plant staunchly entrenched in a winding bed along the front walkway. Since the soil was nothing but pure red clay studded with rocks, I found it amazing to see how lush the growth was.

Since I wanted flowers in that walkway bed, I tried - pretty much in vain - to eradicate the plant. What a task!! I did manage to - temporarily at least - weed out enough of it to get some bulbs & annuals in. Shortly thereafter we sold that house, & I have absolutely no doubt that the new owners probably ended up going thru the same battle.

I'm making this posting "Neutral" rather than "Negative", because 1) surprisingly enough, the plant never left the bed to encroach into the lawn, & 2) I think that if one had an obscure area with really poor soil, this plant might actually work. In its favor, it is quite colorful.

Both Goutweed and Houttneyea are terribly invasive. They go beyond "vigorus spreader" by far. I've turned over two entire garden plots and used a sifter to get the tiniest pieces of them out to no avail. I'm sure a torch would work, as suggested, but I just read that this morning. Goutweed pops up through my daylilies, Asiatic lilies, creeping phlox, sedums, etc. I can deal with lamium and some others but these two are a scourge and should only be planted in a cement lined pot within a garden surrounded by 3' deep cement.

There's no doubt this beautiful groundcover is a garden thug! However, I have found a way to control it to a particular area. After trying barriers, which worked to some extent, and all the weed sprays, which also worked to a minor extent, I did find the method that really keeps it under control! ~~ A propane torch~~
Since using the torch on this plant, I also tried it on the equally pretty and invasive groundcover, houttuynia. In late fall, when Bishop's weed is the only green thing left, burn it, then turn it under and burn the roots.
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My house came with this plant overwhelming all the garden beds. I religiously comb the soil every spring and fall, trying to remove it, and never make any headway. In fact, I think weeding only makes it more vigorous! I did eliminate it from one bed by spraying with Round-up three times in succession, mulching heavily, and continuing to weed new sprouts. That was two years ago, and new sprouts still emerge weekly.
The Bishop's weed remains green after all other plants have died back for the winter--usually until covered by snow. The blossoms are pretty and make great cut flowers, but it is by far the most invasive plant I have ever dealt with. In beds that I haven't been willing to completely kill with Round-up, I try to remove all blooms from the Bishop's Weed so that it is limited to spreading by runners, not seed as well. In my experience, this plant loves disturbed ground and will not grow in undisturbed areas--which means it is largely confine to my garden beds. grrrrrrrrr.

Bishop's Weed started out as a few leaves in one of my gardens piggybacking on a plant given to me by a "friend". It has now taken over quite a bit of my gardens forcing me to remove every plant and painstakingly removing every bit of its roots from around the plants I want to save. Most of the plants that are surrounded by this noxious weed succumb. It sucks all the moisture out of the ground storing it in its roots and starving anything next to it. The roots turn from tan to fat white spaghetti like strands when the area is watered. If left alone it spreads relentlessly, even taking over grassy areas.

I have divided my gardens into contaminated ones and those that are uncontaminated. I am presently turning over all the soil in one garden after another trying to sift out the roots and then applying a thick layer of mulch to the soil. I am constantly looking for the leaves to pop up again from a root I did not find. I think it can be eliminated but I am looking at years of work to eliminate this horror. I really loathe it!

A rhizomatous perennial from mainland Europe, Asia and parts of Russia, widely naturalised.

Has toothed, bright to deep green, divided leaves. Bears flat heads (umbels) of tiny white flowers.

Flowers May to August.

Loves a moist soil in light shade but will tolerate drier soils.

This plant is extremely invasive and persistent, many gardeners spend years battling against its encroachment. The rhizomes are brittle and break very easily, each bit of rhizome can effectively make a new plant in a short time.

Quite apart from its invasiveness the young leaves were once cooked and eaten and was also thought to cure gout. Not recommended, as always if you're going to try these things, ensure you have the right plant, some of its relatives are incredibly poisonous.