Every garden has its particular nemesis, that one weed that outdoes all others. For my garden that weed is pilewort, or lesser celandine.
To know why it is called pilewort, you need to know that pile is another word for hemorrhoid, and then look at the picture above. Little piles clustered under the stems, evil little bulbils that each start a new plant.
It forms great mats all over the garden. I ignored it last year and am paying for my negligence now. It will be gone in another few weeks – it is a spring ephemeral, appearing in March and gone by May.
I am trying to get as much of the dratted stuff out as I can before I put down mulch. So far I have filled two large trash cans for the municipal composters to haul away, and there will be more.
And about that mulch? I’m trying to figure out how much I need to mulch all my beds 3 inches deep. My car can hold ten big bags of shredded hardwood mulch, and I’ve made three trips to the nursery so far. I estimate I’ve got two more trips to go if I want to do all the beds.
It’s tempting to let the pilewort be, and let the beds go naked again this year. But in a month, when the weeds are romping, I’ll look back at my slothfulness in March and shake my head.
Maybe one more trip to the nursery.
A Gardener's Lot 