Will Tagetes minuta control ground elder?
Joan Cullen, by email
Stefan says: Your letter tells me that you saw the suggestion in a nursery catalogue, and to be sure I wasn’t imagining things, I checked it myself online. Sure enough, in the description of Tagetes minuta seed it said it had indeed cleared a bed of ground elder.
Tagetes minuta is an annual South American member of the daisy family, related to garden tagetes and to African and French marigolds. Don’t let the name minuta deceive you however; it’ll reach well over 1m (3¼ft) in height.