rhizomes are a bit like icebergs: we admire the aerial part without suspecting what lies hidden from view. If you don't want your garden to suffer the same fate as the Titanic, get to know your adversary.

Rhizomes are the underground and sometimes underwater stems of perennial plants. They are filled with food reserves. They enable plants to feed themselves during the vegetative rest period, even if no leaves remain on the surface.

Rhizomes adapt to slope and soil composition. Elongated and horizontal, they become oblique to continue growing in the presence of rock or unstable soil.

They have limbs reduced to scales, a root system, nodes and buds. Buds produce aerial stems and flowers. Once the plant has completed its life cycle, it withers and dies. The underground stem then gives rise to another sucker. The same rhizome can give rise to several offshoots at the same time.

Some rhizome plants propagate in clumps, remaining close to the mother plant. But others, known as tracer rhizomes, branch out underground and generate multiple buds. The advantage? The plant reproduces and forms a flowering border or hedge in just a few months. The drawback? It can get out of control and colonize your garden and that of your neighbor.

Indoors, rhizomes are contained in their pots. You can therefore adopt a rabbit's foot fern, bird of paradise, {{ link_to_variety("01FKK61NV49P4A64J7AS6PVGFR") }} or {{ link_to_variety("01G3XS1HF1FZPR31X46JM13X5W") }} without fear of being invaded. Take advantage of annual repotting to multiply your specimen by dividing clumps.

And don't worry if you're transplanting non-tracking rhizomes such as peonies, gladioli, daylilies and irises. Their proliferation is limited to a perimeter of around ten centimetres.

If you're planning to plant bamboo, {{ link_to_variety("01FY9YQYXQS62G7AFANHG14VA1") }}, lily of the valley or mint in your garden, you'll need to take a few precautions. These trailing rhizomes spread and can become weeds. The best solution is to plant them in containers, outdoors, to control their growth. Another solution is to bury an anti-rhizome barrier to prevent the underground stems from spreading. Without guard rails, it's hard to get rid of unwanted plants. Be prepared to cut, dig and uproot.

Packed with starch and protein, rhizomes are often edible. In our vegetable gardens, we grow asparagus, chicory and endive. In warmer climes, we grow manioc, turmeric and canna. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and yams are rhizomes that have become tubers.