Salt Poisons Your Borders. Ground Elder Keeps Spreading.
Ground elder’s white rhizomes creep through soil far below where salt can reach. Meanwhile, the salt you’ve applied stays in your topsoil for years – killing your ornamental plants while the ground elder continues its relentless advance completely unaffected.
Does Salt Kill Ground Elder?
No – and attempting it creates lasting damage to your garden without affecting the ground elder. Salt cannot reach the extensive network of white underground rhizomes that allow ground elder to spread and regenerate. What salt will do is contaminate your soil for years, killing the ornamental plants in your borders while the ground elder – with its rhizomes safely underground – continues spreading exactly as before.
Of all the DIY weed treatments people try on ground elder, salt is perhaps the most counterproductive. You end up with two problems instead of one.
Why Salt Can’t Reach Ground Elder
Ground elder’s survival strategy makes salt treatment completely futile:
Rhizomes spread horizontally underground. Ground elder’s distinctive white rhizomes creep through soil beneath the surface, sending up new plants at intervals. This network can extend metres beyond any visible growth. Salt applied at the surface has no way to reach this spreading system.
Every fragment regenerates. Ground elder rhizomes are brittle. They snap easily when disturbed, and every fragment left in the soil – even pieces just a centimetre or two long – can regenerate into a new plant. Salt treatment does nothing to address this.
Salt stays in the topsoil. Unlike water, salt doesn’t drain away quickly. It accumulates in the upper layers of soil where your ornamental plants have their roots – not where the ground elder rhizomes spread.
Contact treatment only. Even if surface roots absorbed some salt, it wouldn’t travel through the plant to kill the extensive rhizome network. Salt kills by dehydration on contact, not by systemic action.
The Damage Salt Actually Causes
While ground elder ignores your salt treatment, your garden suffers real harm:
Border plants die. The perennials, shrubs, and bulbs in your borders have shallow root systems in exactly the soil layer where salt accumulates. They suffer while ground elder – spreading deeper underground – continues unaffected.
Contamination persists for years. Salt doesn’t break down. In UK conditions with our moderate rainfall, salt contamination can persist in soil for a decade or more. The treated area becomes hostile to most desirable plants.
Damage spreads with water. Rain dissolves surface salt and carries it beyond your original application area. The contamination zone expands, affecting plants you never intended to treat.
Lawn damage. Where ground elder borders your lawn, salt treatment kills grass while the ground elder’s rhizomes continue creeping underneath, emerging unharmed on the other side.
Comparing DIY Methods for Ground Elder
All household remedies fail against ground elder’s creeping rhizomes:
Vinegar: Burns leaves, rhizomes completely unaffected. At least it doesn’t poison your soil for years.
Salt: Can’t reach rhizomes AND contaminates soil. The worst option – you get ground elder plus a damaged garden.
Bleach: Surface damage only, environmental concerns, likely kills plants growing among the ground elder. Still doesn’t reach rhizomes.
Boiling water: Cools before reaching rhizomes, impractical for dense carpets. The safest failure but completely ineffective.
What Actually Works on Ground Elder
Eliminating ground elder permanently requires systemic herbicide that travels from leaves to the entire rhizome network:
Systemic herbicide approach. Allow ground elder to develop plenty of leaf area, then spray thoroughly with glyphosate-based weedkiller. The herbicide absorbs through leaves and travels throughout the plant’s vascular system, reaching every connected rhizome underground.
Multiple treatments required. Ground elder rarely dies from a single application. Respray any regrowth as it appears – each treatment depletes more of the rhizome network’s energy reserves.
Protect your soil. Unlike salt, glyphosate breaks down in soil without leaving lasting contamination. Your borders stay healthy while you eliminate the ground elder.
Careful application in borders. Where ground elder grows among plants you want to keep, use a spray shield or wipe herbicide directly onto ground elder leaves. A targeted treatment approach kills the weed while protecting everything else.
Kill Ground Elder, Not Your Garden
Systemic treatment reaches the entire rhizome network without poisoning your soil. Your borders recover while ground elder dies.
