For some gardeners, lilies of the valley are a real pest. The spring flower has spread throughout the garden via rhizomes or seeds, leaving little room for other plants. Fighting lily of the valley is not easy. Tips on how to permanently remove the flowers.
How to effectively destroy lily of the valley in the garden?
To permanently destroy lilies of the valley, dig up the rhizomes with a digging fork, prevent self-sowing by removing berries and use lily of the valley manure from cuttings to inhibit the sprouting of rhizomes. Dispose of plant residues in the trash, not in the compost.
How lilies of the valley multiply
If you want to eradicate lily of the valley in the garden, you need to know how the flowers spread in the garden.
On the one hand, the flowers produce red berries in which seeds ripen. The seeds are picked up and spread by birds.
The lily of the valley reproduces even more strongly via the underground rhizomes. They form more and more runners and overcome great distances within just a few years.
Methods for controlling lily of the valley in the garden
To combat lily of the valley, you must ensure that the rhizomes do not migrate further and that the flower cannot reseed.
- Dig up rhizomes
- Prevent self-seeding
- Make lily of the valley manure
Extermination requires manual labor
The only truly helpful way to get rid of lily of the valley permanently is to dig up the rhizomes. To do this, you have to use a digging fork (€139.00 on Amazon) to dig up all the beds and areas where lilies of the valley have spread.
Put the digging fork into the ground and lift the earth. Now you can collect the rhizomes by hand. Make sure that you catch all the root parts, because the robust spring bloomers sprout even from very small pieces.
Do not use a spade to destroy the plant. With the spade blade you only pierce the roots into smaller pieces that are harder to pull out of the ground.
Make lily of the valley manure
Lilies of the valley don't like their own waste. Make a manure from cuttings and water the soil with it. This inhibits the sprouting of rhizomes.
Where do the plant remains go?
Do not throw roots and spent flowers into the compost, but rather throw them in the trash can. The rhizomes find ideal conditions in the compost heap to sprout again.
Tip
If you want to eradicate the lily of the valley completely, cut off all the leaves immediately. The lack of nutrients weakens the plant so much that it can only form a few rhizomes.
