Confessions of a Peaceful Gardener Turned Warrior Princess

Originally published on icangarden.com, October 2002

© 2002 Jodi DeLong, All rights reserved

I hate goutweed.

For you who think that might be a plant that gives you an arthritis-likecondition, I'm here to enlighten you. Goutweed, Bishop's weed, Snow on the Mountain...these are all colloquial names, the polite ones anyway, for Aegopodium. It's an innocuous enough looking plant, with either variegated or pure green foliage, and white flowers resembling Queen Anne's lace, which
it's related to. But the evil, nasty, malignant, hateful, frustrating, enraging trait about goutweed is not to be seen above ground, oh no. It spreads by underground stems called runners, and boy, does it spread. No wonder they call it GOUTweed--it certainly gives you a pain when you try to remove it.

Goutweed is the 'I Love You Virus' of the gardening world. If you get it in your garden, beware. It starts out innocently enough, with that fresh green foliage popping up. But then you notice it popping up in all sorts of unexpected places, like under your rosebushes, or in your peony bed, or in your lawn. And once it gets going, it's like the Sorcerer's Apprentice--things get out of control, real fast. You can cut off the shoot that come up out of the ground--and seventeen new ones will come to its funeral.

I don't know what misguided individual planted goutweed on what is now my home in Scotts Bay, Nova Scotia. Probably they picked it up from a neighbour who said, "Look, I have lots of this, it makes a great ground cover, have a few dozen slips of this!" I think that after a couple of years, they realized it was getting overzealous, and tried to curb it by digging it out and dumping it in their compost heap, where of course it was very grateful for the rich feeding and took over. We found a huge mass of it growing in some old straw bales, and when we dug around, we figured out that this had once been a compost heap, and now was a goutweed foodbank. We were able to remove all of that particular batch by simply removing the soil down
about a foot, so as to get all the runners and rhizomes and roots, and dumping it waaaaaayyyy in the back of the property with all sorts of dirt on top of it to hopefully smother it. And if it doesn't smother, it can stay back there and grow. I'm not totally callous.

There are all sorts of people who think goutweed is a wonderful plant. My younger sister, for example, told me recently she loves the stuff, and I can 'send all my unwanted goutweed to her.' If there was a way of emailing the whole jeezly lot to her, I'd be at it in a flash. And woe betide those garden centres, nurseries, and roadside stands that sell the stuff in pots for gardens. It should have a warning label attached to it; "Attention: This plant is worse than crabgrass, chickweed, dandelions and purple loosestrife ever thought of being. Plant only in a desert area." I'm a peaceful gardener. The strongest weapon in my arsenal of assault against pests is insecticidal soap, and that's a last resort, if squishing bugs or a blast from a waterhose doesn't work. The ducks go after slugs and other nasties. I tolerate a lot of free-range flowers--that is to say, things that pop up from selfseeding in some odd places, and some so-called weeds look just fine in the garden and are great for birds and butterflies.
But goutweed--goutweed has no redeeming features whatsoever, unless you want to cover an acre or seven with nothing but goutweed. The blasted stuff turns me from a peaceful organic grower who enjoys worms and bees and ladybugs and goldenrod to the Amazon warrior princess of the garden. Just the sight of goutweed popping its unfurling heads makes me seriously contemplate running to a garden centre for herbicide. Fortunately, I always come to my senses before I do something that drastic.

Get a goat, someone suggested. Goats will eat goutweed. Yes, and pansies, pinks, peonies, daylilies, dahlias, delphinium, daisies, roses...you get the picture. Somehow, that would be defeating the purpose too.

One day last spring, I was out for a plant-search drive, where I would go along country roads in my area, looking for homes that had perennials for sale. When you're a perennial gardener, you usually find that you have lots of extra plants to give to friends, and then after that, why not sell a few to support your habit of buying more plants? For those poor souls who have a
generous crop of goutweed, and can sell off a few dozen pots to unsuspecting new gardeners at two or three dollars a pot....well, you can see how else the darn stuff can spread. Anyway, I happened along to a particular house where I knew the owners sold off interesting perennials, and I stopped in. While chatting with the owner, I abruptly stopped in mid-conversation when something caught my eye--a large expanse of goutweed, nothing but goutweed, in one corner of her garden. There was nothing else there but the distinctive leaves and flowers of goutweed, but only in that one part of her yard. The remainder of the garden seemed goutweed free. I asked her about it. "Oh yes, Bishop's weed does spread," she said blithely. "But I like it there, it covers a part of the yard where the soil isn't great, it stays green even in the hot part of August, and it grows tall enough so the kids stay out of it. It's no problem." Barely able to keep my voice from shaking, I told her of my hatred ofgoutweed. She listened to my ranting about the goutweed invasion trying to take over my lavender bed, the goutweed under my lilacs, and she sighed. "Can't you just give over a space and let it be there? Just surrender one area, and maybe isolate that, and build the rest of your gardens where it isn't?"

It's an idea. It's better than using a herbicide. It's better than trying to cut it all down and starve it to death. It's better than getting high blood pressure when I see a new shoot of it. I'm in detente with goutweed right now. I've allowed it to be under the
shrubs and right into the ditch, if it wants. But there's a root barrier at the bottom of the bed where it is, and it's not welcome beyond that point. Maybe some herbalist will discover some great use for goutweed, like it cures cancer, or relieves PMS, or makes hair grow again on men's head. Til then, I still hate goutweed.