Garlic Mustard Alliaria petiolata noxious weed

I've seen a lot of garlic mustard in waste areas and woods in our neighborhood. I thought it was just another weed but I recently read that it's a much more devastating noxious pest endangering trees and forests. The weed apparently produces a chemical that kills the symbiotic fungi that trees depend on to take up nutrients from the soil. Removing the garlic mustard doesn't help as the toxic chemicals are already in the soil by the time you see the weed. Here's the site of one of the researchers U of Guelph, Ontario ecologist John Klironomos which describes the extent of the problem.

And here's a Michigan State U. site with a lot of information and pictures on this pest.

Now that I think of it, I saw several stands of the weed adjacent to our backyard. I'll have to see if it will affect the birches planted nearby. Or maybe it has already stunted the trees?

Keep it out of your garden if you want your plants to thrive.