Bindweed

beer enigma

Major problem with bindweed.

The whole garden is matted with heavy duty weed suppressant matting, but where there is planting, the bindweed has found its way through. If I spray, I'll kill the plants & I cant lift the matting to dig the stuff out.

Anyone any ideas ??

englander

From my experience you have two choices with bindweed.

1. (Which you say isn't feasible) Dig the bindweed roots out making sure you get every scrap of root (they snap off easily and then new plant will grow from the tiniest bit of root). Then burn the bloody things ! (composting them isn't a good idea).

2. Put a cane in the ground which the bindweed will grow up (at an incredible rate) so you have a lot of weed to treat with weedkiller (put it on the leaves that will then travel down and kill the roots). I suppose you still have to be careful with where you get the weedkiller.

I have loads of them in my garden and its very difficult to get rid of.

I'd love to hear anymore ideas on how to get rid of them.

Good luck.

beer enigma

The 'stick trick' is quite an idea ! - I'll give that a bash


thanks

UNEDO

another option-probably only suitable for a small scale problem

Gather up the growing tendril and stulff into a plastic bag-making sure that the tendril is still attached to the plant.

Spray systemic weedkiller into the plastic bag and leave to let it get abosrbed into the root system. this way you can be sure that you wont damage nearby plants.
UNEDO

PS Went to Kew Gardens this summer and was enormously reassured to see the attendants hand digging out the roots of the dreaded convolvolus- they are plagued with as well. whats good enough for kew is good enough for me!!!

FranknFurter

This is my own method...........always has worked for me.
Cut every bit back to ground level, each time you see a new bit coming up, make a "paste" of table salt and a tiny bit of water, and paint it on the leaves / stem, quite heavilly. Dies within days.

b

Ronan H

I hear a Uranium Tipped Missile would probably get rid of the fecking thing, but you mightnt have much of a garden left after it :mad:.


Let me give you the pretext for my story: I planted Sweet Pea last year in my garden and it never grew, i figured i planted it too late and forgot about it. Then this year, in the area where i planted the SP, these little yokes started growing (which i now know is bindweed) like mad and i figured it was the SP from last year. I put down some bamboo canes and the BW flew up them, twisting around it and growing about 3 inches a day... I only discovered recently that it was BW when i went searching for information about how to look after SP. I looked up some photographs of SP and they didnt look anything like the BW so eventually after searching for "twining weed" i found out that it was BW :rolleyes:. Duh...

I was kinda torn about whether to get rid of it or not as i have purposely (thinking it was SP) grown it up numerous bamboo canes and into a trellis and the flowers will be due on it soon, so i figured it might be nice if i kept control of it a bit, but now im beginning to think that i should get rid of it ASAP based on what i have read on the subject. Its not affecting any other plants on the surface but i read that it competes vigorously for water beneath the surface, which is not good. Which is even less good is that i have been purposely watering it (again in the days when i thought it was a beautiful SP) for a few weeks now!

If i thought it was relatively controllable i would keep it but maybe that would be a big mistake indeed...

Opinions...?

Weed Head

*** slaps himself across the face for thinking that a vigorously agressive weed was a nice delicate Sweet Pea plant***

hobie

UNEDO wrote:

another option-probably only suitable for a small scale problem

Gather up the growing tendril and stulff into a plastic bag-making sure that the tendril is still attached to the plant.

Spray systemic weedkiller into the plastic bag and leave to let it get abosrbed into the root system. this way you can be sure that you wont damage nearby plants.
UNEDO

PS Went to Kew Gardens this summer and was enormously reassured to see the attendants hand digging out the roots of the dreaded convolvolus- they are plagued with as well. whats good enough for kew is good enough for me!!!

That is what I did a few years ago on a very invasive plant that came in with farmyard manure ..... I tied each bag loosely at the neck to make sure they didn't blow away ..... I must have had a couple of dozen on the go and one stage but they did the trick ....

Alun

To Head .. you did know you were replying to a thread from September 2005, did you?

hobie

Alun wrote:

To Head .. you did know you were replying to a thread from September 2005, did you?

Oh Blimey !!!!! .......

Oh well ..... better late than never I guess .....

artieanna

Well 2005 or 2007 I'm glad to see this thread as the dreaded bindweed has entered my garden. It got in from grass clippings from another part of the garden. I can't spray it as the area is planted up and even then, I'm not sure if it will kill it.

Bindweed is a proper pain.... anyone have sucess in shifting it please tell me....before it takes over the country:mad:

beer enigma

Well since I started this thread.....

I tried the stick, the bag & very tempted by the nuclear missile - but in the end I tore up all the matting (it was acting as a conduit for the bindweed roots) and im in the process of hand digging 1/2 an acre or gardens.....

I'll update in 2010 when I'm finished.....:rolleyes:

maglet

i'm having similar bindweed nightmares and finding that digging & taking out the roots by hand is the only answer for my garden.
takes a long time but when you pull out a bunch of roots it can be quite satisifing.

Ronan H

Yeah i knew it was an old thread alright but i figured that some people might have subbed it and it was the only one i found when i searched for bindweed...

I tried salt paste on two new ones that were growing but i havent checked if anything happened yet, ill give it another day and then check for results...

Bind Head