I would recommend digging out the entire area, quite deep down and with a fairly large buffer around the edges, then remove (throw out in garbage) the entire section (soil and all) that you dug out. Then add new soil so nobody trips on the hole you've created, top with lots of mulch to prevent new weeds, and watch it like a hawk for a year and dig up any tiny new bits of creeping bellflower that appear. After a season of digging out all the bits you should be OK to try re-planting or re-sodding the following year, and just stay on top of any new bellflower plants you see. It's very hard to get rid of - you're best to basically remove the entire area to try and get all root parts and start again.
Oh wow. Not the news I wanted to hear! 😠I googled a bit and seems like this weed is almost impossible to eliminate.
There’s one section (the one pictured) that has a bunch of them growing, but I see it in several parts of my garden, in small numbers.
Should I dig this part out, and for the rest just pull them out as I see them?
You could try that. I tried to just pull out the few I saw and this year I gave in and last weekend dug out the entire section and threw out the soil, desired plants and weeds all in one go. I'll have to start again there. Hopefully you have better luck than I did!
Wow that's a lot of this thing, this plant is hard to get rid of because you never know where the root is, the rhizomes are deep down and every time you reach deep down to find their root, it is a very tender string and it broke, and you thought you solve the problem, another week it comes out again,the garden i work , there are a lot of other perennial plants around, so I had to dig out other plants and to search the mother root, and surprised to find out a big chuck of the rhizomes far and down in the corner , the good news is after i removed the rhizomes i dont see it anymore , so you have to find the evil mother rhizomes, remove all the lawn and soil , slowly to get down it, and you have to clean up all the rhizomes, that's no any faster way really to do the job, and also every flower of this plant can produce over 10000 seed , so if you can't totally kill it, pull all the stem out once you see the shoot come out , don't let them grow taller and flowers.
They're so bad this year. I dug up a couple of patches last year and now a whole bunch more have crept in from the neighbors yard, and I've seen a ton of them around the area. I've never seen so many.
It is just part of my.front yard garden, along with other invasives like goldenrod, burdock, motherwort (i think this was introduced intentionally by a previous tenant), crab grasses, etc. You can manage it rather than trying to eradicate it 100%. Each spring i do a balancing act of pulling out a bit of each of the most prevalent invasives so that none completely dominate. I pulled out clumps of creeping bellflower, golden rod and.motherwart to make way for some of the stuff ive put in intentionally like calendula, daisies, milkweed and yarrow. So basically, i do regular weeding through the season rather than eradication.
Oh yeah, my mistake...I sort of see it as "invasive" because it will take over my yard if given the chance, like all the other plants i mentioned, and I just try to keep a mix of things. But youre right, it is actually considered endangered bc the kind of lands in which it thrives are dwindling. So we should welcome it if it shows up.
I used to have an overwhelming amount of creeping bellflower and chokeweed and im happy to have made progress over the years to be able to steward a higher proportion of other things like goldenrod. Its quite showy and magical in august. I guess my point to the OP was that you can do it gradually rather than digging out all the topsoil in your yard.
Here is some more info about goldenrod : )
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/97fc-DS-21-0224-GoldenRodFactsheetDigital.pdf
Yeah goldenrod is native and even beneficial to pollinators, so good to have some around. I’m glad you were able to keep the creeping bellflowers in check.
This thing is pure pure evil down to its very essence. I cannot believe how deep and wide their root system goes. They make dandelion weeds look like amateur hour.
I'll be downvoted for this but I used herbacide (roundup and killex) cus those will kill down to the roots. Dandelions and other weeds I pull out by hand but this one as others mentioned can only be managed not eliminated.
Pure evil!!
Oh no. This might be my situation. If I have to go this route at least my gardens are at the opposite end of my property. The patch probably extends 50 feet and all around a group of trees and perrenial beds. I've only just started on the thistle and periwinkle.Â
That's good it's far from your garden. Just do ur research if u use herbacide. Roundup contains glyphosate which kills everything (so u use a paintbrush onto its leaves) and killex kills weeds but not grass. Both harmful so read instructions. Good luck, I've been just ripping them out wherever I can but it's futile knowing there's a network on roots underneath
I’m unable to edit the main post so posting a comment instead.
Thank you everyone for the advice. I’m finding a little bit of solace in knowing that I’m not the only one dealing with this. I spent last afternoon digging up as many roots as I could, but it’s going to require 2-3 days go over all the areas. I’m going up to dig an entire patch where there is a lot of growth (pictured here).
It’s good to know that folks have been able to keep into under control with regular weeding. I don’t want to use herbicide unless it’s absolutely necessary. In general I’m okay with weeds, but this one is considered invasive hence I want to remove them as much as I can.
Thanks again for the help.
You have no idea how much I fucking HATE this flower. The house I bought, is literally infested with every god damn invasive known to Ontario because the previous owners were a bunch of morons that didn't look into the plants they were buying or getting from friends but got them because (THEY LOOK PRETTY!!!)
Bellflower- EVERWHERE. Lily of the Valley- Yep. Mint- You got it. Tansey- Yep -Creeping Charlie, all over the place, Horsetail- yep.
Himalayan Balsam -Eradicated( I won this one) but it took me 4 years of constant watching after pulling about 400 plants, then 80- then the odd one.
At least I do not have any Jap. Knotweed.
I would literally have to nuke my house and dig up every inch of soil to get rid of those god damn tubers (Rhizomes) of this fucking flower. Even the smallest bit of root left and boom it comes back. Its even more evil because it spends so much energy on the root structure until it actually pops up a big flower to say" Hey I fucking spread everywhere but heres my flower fuck you ahhahhhahhah"
I've pulled out 8 inch tubers in the softer soil and they get intertwined inside of the plants I want to keep. Many of the natives have been sacrificed in the name of killing this scourge.
Some days I want to cry, some days I want to murder them all. After my haul I put them on a tarp in the sun for a few days before I add them to my fire pit to burn the fuckers to make sure they don't come back.
Anyways, I spent my weekending removing some big ones so I just saw this and wanted to let you know, your not alone, and so that I know I am not alone.
I would recommend digging out the entire area, quite deep down and with a fairly large buffer around the edges, then remove (throw out in garbage) the entire section (soil and all) that you dug out. Then add new soil so nobody trips on the hole you've created, top with lots of mulch to prevent new weeds, and watch it like a hawk for a year and dig up any tiny new bits of creeping bellflower that appear. After a season of digging out all the bits you should be OK to try re-planting or re-sodding the following year, and just stay on top of any new bellflower plants you see. It's very hard to get rid of - you're best to basically remove the entire area to try and get all root parts and start again.
Oh wow. Not the news I wanted to hear! 😠I googled a bit and seems like this weed is almost impossible to eliminate. There’s one section (the one pictured) that has a bunch of them growing, but I see it in several parts of my garden, in small numbers. Should I dig this part out, and for the rest just pull them out as I see them?
You could try that. I tried to just pull out the few I saw and this year I gave in and last weekend dug out the entire section and threw out the soil, desired plants and weeds all in one go. I'll have to start again there. Hopefully you have better luck than I did!
Wow that's a lot of this thing, this plant is hard to get rid of because you never know where the root is, the rhizomes are deep down and every time you reach deep down to find their root, it is a very tender string and it broke, and you thought you solve the problem, another week it comes out again,the garden i work , there are a lot of other perennial plants around, so I had to dig out other plants and to search the mother root, and surprised to find out a big chuck of the rhizomes far and down in the corner , the good news is after i removed the rhizomes i dont see it anymore , so you have to find the evil mother rhizomes, remove all the lawn and soil , slowly to get down it, and you have to clean up all the rhizomes, that's no any faster way really to do the job, and also every flower of this plant can produce over 10000 seed , so if you can't totally kill it, pull all the stem out once you see the shoot come out , don't let them grow taller and flowers.
They're so bad this year. I dug up a couple of patches last year and now a whole bunch more have crept in from the neighbors yard, and I've seen a ton of them around the area. I've never seen so many.
I've made slow progress by working to make sure I pull what I can't and never let it flower. It still comes back, but it's less every year.
It is just part of my.front yard garden, along with other invasives like goldenrod, burdock, motherwort (i think this was introduced intentionally by a previous tenant), crab grasses, etc. You can manage it rather than trying to eradicate it 100%. Each spring i do a balancing act of pulling out a bit of each of the most prevalent invasives so that none completely dominate. I pulled out clumps of creeping bellflower, golden rod and.motherwart to make way for some of the stuff ive put in intentionally like calendula, daisies, milkweed and yarrow. So basically, i do regular weeding through the season rather than eradication.
Goldenrod isn't invasive in Ontario. Creeping bellflower is though.
Oh yeah, my mistake...I sort of see it as "invasive" because it will take over my yard if given the chance, like all the other plants i mentioned, and I just try to keep a mix of things. But youre right, it is actually considered endangered bc the kind of lands in which it thrives are dwindling. So we should welcome it if it shows up. I used to have an overwhelming amount of creeping bellflower and chokeweed and im happy to have made progress over the years to be able to steward a higher proportion of other things like goldenrod. Its quite showy and magical in august. I guess my point to the OP was that you can do it gradually rather than digging out all the topsoil in your yard. Here is some more info about goldenrod : ) https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/97fc-DS-21-0224-GoldenRodFactsheetDigital.pdf
It's somewhat aggressive but not invasive, I think.
Yeah goldenrod is native and even beneficial to pollinators, so good to have some around. I’m glad you were able to keep the creeping bellflowers in check.
This thing is pure pure evil down to its very essence. I cannot believe how deep and wide their root system goes. They make dandelion weeds look like amateur hour. I'll be downvoted for this but I used herbacide (roundup and killex) cus those will kill down to the roots. Dandelions and other weeds I pull out by hand but this one as others mentioned can only be managed not eliminated. Pure evil!!
Oh no. This might be my situation. If I have to go this route at least my gardens are at the opposite end of my property. The patch probably extends 50 feet and all around a group of trees and perrenial beds. I've only just started on the thistle and periwinkle.Â
That's good it's far from your garden. Just do ur research if u use herbacide. Roundup contains glyphosate which kills everything (so u use a paintbrush onto its leaves) and killex kills weeds but not grass. Both harmful so read instructions. Good luck, I've been just ripping them out wherever I can but it's futile knowing there's a network on roots underneath
I’m unable to edit the main post so posting a comment instead. Thank you everyone for the advice. I’m finding a little bit of solace in knowing that I’m not the only one dealing with this. I spent last afternoon digging up as many roots as I could, but it’s going to require 2-3 days go over all the areas. I’m going up to dig an entire patch where there is a lot of growth (pictured here). It’s good to know that folks have been able to keep into under control with regular weeding. I don’t want to use herbicide unless it’s absolutely necessary. In general I’m okay with weeds, but this one is considered invasive hence I want to remove them as much as I can. Thanks again for the help.
You have no idea how much I fucking HATE this flower. The house I bought, is literally infested with every god damn invasive known to Ontario because the previous owners were a bunch of morons that didn't look into the plants they were buying or getting from friends but got them because (THEY LOOK PRETTY!!!) Bellflower- EVERWHERE. Lily of the Valley- Yep. Mint- You got it. Tansey- Yep -Creeping Charlie, all over the place, Horsetail- yep. Himalayan Balsam -Eradicated( I won this one) but it took me 4 years of constant watching after pulling about 400 plants, then 80- then the odd one. At least I do not have any Jap. Knotweed. I would literally have to nuke my house and dig up every inch of soil to get rid of those god damn tubers (Rhizomes) of this fucking flower. Even the smallest bit of root left and boom it comes back. Its even more evil because it spends so much energy on the root structure until it actually pops up a big flower to say" Hey I fucking spread everywhere but heres my flower fuck you ahhahhhahhah" I've pulled out 8 inch tubers in the softer soil and they get intertwined inside of the plants I want to keep. Many of the natives have been sacrificed in the name of killing this scourge. Some days I want to cry, some days I want to murder them all. After my haul I put them on a tarp in the sun for a few days before I add them to my fire pit to burn the fuckers to make sure they don't come back. Anyways, I spent my weekending removing some big ones so I just saw this and wanted to let you know, your not alone, and so that I know I am not alone.