I quite like the lesser celandine, although I grew the fancy leaved forms (which would often revert to the straight green species). They would often take over my woodland shade area in spring then disappear. They never seemed to overwhelm anything - certainly not my hellebores - and were relatively easy to remove where not wanted. Wish I could say the same for their cousin, the creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens......now THAT one's the pernicious weed in my garden!! I get the impression that the hellebores may be relatively new - once they become well-established clumps with some size to them, I doubt you will need to worry about the celandine overwhelming them, just as flora indicates :-)

Lesser celandine is the bane of my existence. The first two springs after I planted my native garden I tried to pull it by hand, but every year it seemed to get worse. This year, there are carpets of it, wrapped around the bases of the other plants, smothering others out of existence (a wild geranium and two Hypoxis hirsuta have vanished beneath the Ranunculus - it's like a 1950s sci-fi movie!) This year I got over my toxic chemical qualms and bought some Round-Up, but it didn't seem to do much good, and I couldn't spray in and around the other plants, which meant I couldn't spray most of the lesser celandine. Is there any chance that, if I leave it alone, the lack of soil disturbance will tame it? I'm guessing no. With the lesser celandine, star of bethlehem, burdock, dandelion and other weeds, my native gardening experience is often not an enjoyable one. -- wd

The one side of our property line boarders a woodland area with a stream. The first spring after we moved into the house I discovered we had a yellow flower that grew all over the place. I later found out it was Lesser Celandine. I have tried to kill the invasive plant with Round-up but I am realizing that this would be a lifelong & very expensive battle since our property boarders the woods which is covered with a thick carpet of this stuff. Not to mention our neighbors do not do anything to try and erradicate the invasive plant. Wondering if there is any sort of ground barrier that I can put in the ground around my property (similar to what they do for bamboo) that would at least stop the majority of the spreading coming up from the woods. That way I erradicate what I currently have in my property and stop the spreading of new growth coming from the woods. Does anyone know if a ground barrier would work for a tubler/bulblet type plant? If so how deep would the ground barrier have to go and what type of barrier material should I use (galvanized sheetmetal, plastic, etc?) Thanks!

This plant is a pain and the window of time in which to address it during any given year is limited. See the attached link. You would probably have to go chemical to knock it back significantly. Here is a link that might be useful: PCA fact sheet