Roots before the eyes

It didn't rain today and has been pretty mild, so spent the day digging ground elder out of my central flower bed.   Maybe it's just me, but I always find that if I have spent the day battling with an insidious enemy of the spreading root variety (read ground elder (home) or bindweed (allotment)), when I finally close my eyes at night, I vividly see the root to which I have been dealing death all day.  It's more than just thinking about it, I do actually see it in my head when I try to get to sleep.  Does anyone else experience this, or am I just a weirdo?

Planted more anemone corms as I picked them up cheap at the garden centre yesterday - a bit late maybe, but for a pound a packet, it's worth a go.  Judging by the popularity of my anemone coronaria 'Sylphide' pin, lots of people share my love of these cheerful blooms.

Coming up roses...

Lovely scents in the garden at the moment - sweet peas are starting and the roses are coming into flower.  Can't resist cutting them for the house and love them mixed in with the frothy lime green of alchemilla mollis.

 It's also the only time of year when I have even a small corner in my heart for ground elder.... If it wasn't such a thug, it would actually be quite a good plant as it has lovely bright foliage and stems and gorgeous airy white flowers.  The fact that I have hack them off before it can spread seed anywhere else means that I have lots to stuff into my flower arrangements - it is very pretty though. Pity I hate it for its invasiveness...

A mixed bunch of roses, knautia, alchemilla mollis, ground elder and pink and white snapdragons.  A few sprigs of pittosporum are great with their variegated leaves and dark stems for contrast.

Wish I could add smellivision too.... Gorgeously scented.

Death to ground elder!

Astrantia (pink) and Lysimachia (purple leaf)

Hardy Geranium with euphorbia
(green foliage and bracts)

Spent my afternoon doing battle with the creeping roots of ground elder - I can tell I've been too busy to garden properly over the past 18 months as the evil weed is now firmly re-established in one of the borders.

One happy side effect of ferreting out the insidious roots is that it has encouraged me to review which plants merit a place in the affected border and which ones are just too woody, straggly and generally over the hill. No mercy has been shown to anything falling into the latter category - green recycling bags now await collection stuffed with scruffy purple sage (have another clump which I'll take cuttings from later to replenish my stocks), invasive lumps of lysimachia (which has great purple foliage, but is a real thug) and endless seedlings of hardy geranium which are making a bid for world domination.

Also lifted and divided clumps of herbaceous perennials like astrantia, anemone levellei, primroses and aquilegias, so hopefully the denuded border should fill up again over the coming months and show a bit more vigour.  That's the theory anyhow - hope we don't get a prolonged cold snap or another dry spring like last year...

Shifted some of the hellebore seedlings which were clustered at the feet of the parent plant - Old Mother hellebore is just coming into flower, so I know that the growing season is imminent.  Lungworts are also starting to add a welcome splash of blue and pink in addition to the snowdrops which are putting on a great display this year.

It feels good to be doing some proper gardening again - it's definitely addictive, and I get very grumpy if I can't get out there and do something.