There are triffids in the garden. Well, not exactly. There are no homicidal plants that will kill and eat you but there is an invasive weed. And it has made me feel completely overwhelmed.

A few years ago my mother’s neighbours complained about a weed in her garden that could spread into theirs. At that point, she did have a gardener but he moved on, and being an old lady on her own, mum was unable to find another. Perhaps if the neighbours had helped her then, things might not have got to this point. They are on the whole excellent neighbours but they did not help mum find a new gardener.

She does have a guy who mows the lawn. Last summer I asked him to help me with garden. It isn’t that big but it had become an impenetrable jungle and it was beyond me to tame it. He worked really hard and cleared it back; he also did some weeding. He told me, this weed is very difficult to eradicate, it’ll require quite a bit of work and could take several years. He gave me a name: Ground Elder.

Trouble is I’m not a gardener. And I had so much else on my mind. So I didn’t really take him seriously. Then the other week I noticed spring was here and I also noticed the weed was indeed beginning to creep under the fence into the neighbours’ garden. So I thought it might be time to sort it out. I googled it and oh, I did not like what I read. Actually, I despaired.

It really is difficult to eradicate, it will take hours of hand weeding and digging possibly over several seasons. But I haven’t got a lot of spare time and energy for hand weeding, and I haven’t got several seasons – or at least, I don’t want to find myself trapped here after mum has passed on.

I felt crushed and completely at a loss. I didn’t sleep for one whole night feeling utterly powerless against this plant that threatened to take over the garden and exhaust me in the process. However, on the advice of a friend who gardens, I spoke to the gardener.  Yesterday he spent several hours here and really attacked the growth. Now, hopefully, he will help me to keep on battering at it and digging it out and eventually it will be eradicated. I hope it will work – because for me it really felt like the last straw. Or the last weed….