March and April are good times to begin the long eradication of these plants. Of course not everyone views them as undesirable – they are easy to grow, colourful, present for relatively little time and do little or no damage to bigger plants. Two things might suffer if they are left – small plants like spring-flowering alpines and planned spring colour schemes. They also self-seed and might eventually carpet large areas. The grape hyacinths are especially sneaky because the young foliage is hair-thin.
Glyphosate weedkiller ought to be translocated and permanently kill the bulb but has no effect on either bluebells or grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum). Celandines do succumb if sprayed in March but their death is slow and distressing and they’ll often reappear in a weakened state the following year.
Assemble your tools including a kneeler or a stool and, essentially, a radio. This is a long, satisfying and rewarding job. Be determined to enjoy it. Digging them up in early spring means you can find each bulb and because the plant is concentrating on flowering and reproduction the often shrunken and immature bulb is in a less good state to defend itself.
Leave some soil around the clumps of grape hyacinths or you’ll drop back some bulblets. With celandines and bluebells soil and bulbs are more easily separated. Where the plants are growing out of the crowns of perennials there’s little option other than to divide the perennials and extract the offenders in the process. The ultimate reward is lots of new fresh cultivated ground that you can fill with something else.
Prepare yourself mentally for the following year because however assiduous you are some will have been missed – but then there will be fewer and they’ll be easier to extract.
