It’s time for the highly anticipated update on my war on bishop’s weed/goutweed!  I’m kidding, but I know some people are looking forward to an update and some advice on how to get rid of goutweed (or at least get it under control).  Before I get into the different methods I’ve tried and which have been most effective for me, I want to share a fresh perspective on this aggressive ground cover.  While searching online for advice and support can be a good thing, I’m not sure it’s always 100% helpful (except this blog post, of course!)  It’s sort of like Googling a surgery you’re about to have or an appliance you want to buy.  The majority of the stories, reviews, and advice you find will be negative, especially on open forums.  People who are upset about something have a more compelling reason to get online and share their misery

Earlier this year, our family worked together to trim down the abelia hedge as part of the first phase of getting this garden bed under control.  You can tell it used to be a beautiful garden bed – a semi-circular hedge of flowering abelia bushes framing a lilac tree that offered some privacy to the bedroom and bathroom windows.  It has gone unchecked for too many years, though, and it needs a lot of work.  Here is how it looked before we trimmed the hedge in February… And here is how it looks today, now that the abelia bushes have started to leaf in. It already looks better, even though there is still a lot to do! We had a beautiful evening yesterday, so I worked on this garden bed for about an hour.  There were maple saplings that had been allowed to grow haphazardly for a few years, coming