Question
A few years ago I found a small clump of "pretty" green and cream leaves growing in our VT woods...dug it up and put it in my perrenial bed. WRONG!I have since learned it is Bishop's Weed.It's now everywhere chocking my plants. Other than digging up the entire garden, sifting through the dirt for its roots, and then replanting my keeper perrenials...is there an "easy" fix.....I'm thinking not, but still hoping... Thank you

Answer
Bishop's Weed aka Ground Elder -- Aegopodium podagraria -- grows FAST all the way up to Zone 3a.  It is known to be highly invasive.  In its essay, 'The biology and non-chemical control of Ground Elder', Britain's organic HDRA declares that Bishop's Weed 'is now known to be one of the worst garden weeds to eradicate.'  Here's the URL:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/downloads/aegopodium%20podagraria.p...

They point out, 'Ground elder does set seed but vegetative spread is more important.  The rhizomes can grow 15 to 90 cm per year.'  (That's 6 to 36 inches annually.)

To get rid of it, they say, 'It should be hoed repeatedly to exhaust the creeping rootstock.  In gardens the soil should be dug over and the rhizomes removed, but a single cultivation will not suffice.  A bare fallow with repeated cultivations will be needed on a field scale.'  Rhizomes should be 'collected and burnt'.  They suggest that 'Liming may reduce the weed, draining may help on wet land, as may cleaning crops like potato.'

A domestic website, The Organic Gardener, posts photos of the Weed and Roots:

http://www.the-organic-gardener.com/weed.html

TOG advises gardeners trying to rid their plot of this weed, 'If you tackle this by forking it out be sure to remove all the underground parts.  It can be reduced by continual cutting and by a sheet mulch, and see Tagetes minuta.'

Tagates minuta, they say, is a noxious Weed in California, but it is planted elsewhere as a control measure for some Weeds capable of 'combating, Ground Elder, Bindweed, and Couch Grass.  It probably works by producing growth inhibitory root exudates.  In the UK it is a half hardy annual. T. minuta grows 4 to 8 ft high and is also known as Stinkweed, Wild Marigold or Marigold...  Problems may be avoided by cutting down flowers well before seed dispersal.'

But the best advice by far is posted at the Organic Gardening Club's website:

http://www.gardenclub.net/invasive.htm

The author could have been reading your mind as s/he penned the words, 'I wish I hadn't planted that there?磑r what was I thinking??

And one of the featured mistakes is Bishop's Weed, described as 'a beautiful bully that will carry on their battle for dominance.'

But they offer no advice, quick fix or otherwise, on getting rid of the mistake.  It is however full of sympathy.  You are not alone.  It is banned in Connecticut, Prohibited in Massachusetts, and classified as a Class B Noxious Weed in Vermont.  In other words, you would be breaking the Law by growing it at your house in those states.

The greatest success I am afraid is with Roundup.  I would not however use that in my own garden; it is not the benign cocktail the manufacturer promotes it to be.  And of course one slip and you can kiss your perennials goodbye.

Good luck, and I wish there was a brighter light on the horizon for this problem.  Keep in touch.