How deep do I have to dig to get rid of bindweed? Should I hire a mini-digger?
Question:Bindweed is taking over and driving me mental. Even my lawn has bindweed now. How to get rid of it? Which weedkiller works (if any)?
Answers:
The roots of bindweed are energy stores (like a potato). The long-term answer is to keep on cutting off and destroying all the green shoots. Without leaves to photosynthesise & replace lost energy, the roots will eventually be exhausted & die.
Quite right not to break up the root system. Like a potato, the plant will regenerate from every fragment. The idea of letting it develop before poisoning it sounds attractive, but I'd be afraid of letting it get such a hold; systemic weedkillers are not always as deadly in practice as it says on the tin. If you do go down this road, spray the leaves first with water to encourage the poison to adhere & coat the whole leaf.
One advantage of the training method is that until you actually whack the plant, it will be beautiful. The flowers would be prized at shows if the plant weren't such a pest.
VERY deep the roots can be many feet long. i had it in my garden, and it has taken me four years to get rid of it all. i dug into it as soon as i saw the first leaves appear.so good luck.
The more you dig bindweed, the more you cut up the roots and disperse them and the more it spreads.
The way to get rid of it is to put canes in the ground and train the bind weed to grow up it. When you have a really good crop, with lots of leaves make up a bucket of systemic weed killer. Put on a pair of good quality rubber gloves, then a pair of absorbant gloves like woolen ones. Dip your hands in the weed killer soakng the gloves and then apply your gloved hands up and down all the leaves making sure that they are covered with liquid. Dispose of any left over liquid, and the gloves safely and wait for the bind weed to die.
The point is you need to apply the killer to a lot of top growth to get enough weed killer into the plant's system to kill it completely, Good Luckj
You will never dig it out!
Glyphosate is a non-selective total weedkiller applied to the foliage, where it is translocated throughout the weed. Being non selective it is essential to avoid spray drift onto neighbouring plants. It is important to have good leaf coverage so that as much chemical is absorbed as possible. It is usually more effective when the weed has reached the flowering stage but can be effective well into the autumn. Early spring applications are generally less successful. Spraying in the early evening is more effective than spraying during the day. Where the weed has started to twine into plants it is possible to carefully untwine the stems and lay them on bare ground before spraying the foliage.
Dichlobenil, the active ingredient found in Casoron G4 Weed Barrier, is a soil-acting residual weedkiller, applied in spring which will check weed growth among some established woody plants (check label for details). It is also used where bindweed is growing through paths and drives.
In lawns
Both weeds are very difficult to kill when growing in the lawn. Regular mowing will help keep it under control and eventually weaken the plants.
I would advise against the use of weedkillers apart from in extreme circumstances ie, in the control of highly pernicious weeds such as Japanese Knotweed and giant hogweed. I've found that consistently removing weed material either by pulling (only in light/ well cultivated soil) or by digging out the plant roots will work given time. I have managed to eradicate bindweed from an area of my garden using this method. Whilst its true that bindweed like many perennial weeds will store energy within its roots, consistent removal of the weed (and burning of plant material) will weaken the plant overtime and it will become much less of an issue. Little and often is the key to removing weeds like bindweed and its also important not to get too obsessed with removing all weeds from a garden otherwise you will spend all your time pulling weeds, its about minimising their threat to other plants. Planting the area with lots of groundcover also helps to keep bindweed at bay, plants such as cotoneaster and iberis serve this function well. Hope this helps Jimmy BSc (Hons) Horticulture
just pull it out when it gets annoying.
I think it looks good. (Though perhaps not in your lawn) Let it grow! The flowers are beautiful and weedkiller kills all the wildlife - shame!
Don't get a mini digger it will only make it worse.
Most of the above re: glyphosate is good advice, let me add a favourite trick of mine;
Let it grow at least six inches or so, then make up your glyphosate mix in an old jam jar, cut some tin foil into squares and then using an old paint brush "paint" the mix on to the weeds which are lying on the foil - fold the foil over and roll it up and tuck it out of sight (it doesn't look so good on the lawn but it's only for a week or so)
This is what I call the "hair highlights treatment" so if you've never had slices done before ask your hairdresser for tips!
I generally don't use chemicals but with bindweed the other option is moving!!
If you do decide to use weedkiller, grow the bindweed up canes, as already suggested, then drop a cardboard tube (loo roll, kitchen roll or make one the right size yourself) over the cane and spray the weedkiller down the tube - it will stop the the weedkiller from going onto the rest of your plants. You'll have to be persistent though and make repeated applications, it isn't easy to get rid of. Crushing the leaves before you spray them should increase the rate of absorption.
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