Morning Glories Taking Over

[LeeLee222]

Hi there. I recently bought a house and I'm VERY new to gardening. The previous owner had morning glories planted in a boarder area on the side of my driveway. The flowers are pretty, but the vine is completely untamed and grows over everything else that is planted there. Any suggestions on how to tame it? No matter how many times I pull it out of the ground, it comes back the next week! I've given up on trying to remove it and am willing to work with it. The area is much too small for an arbor, but I didn't know if a small trellis would help. If you think so, please give me the basics on how to get it to gravitate there. I'm still learning. Any suggestions would be appreciated. My neighbor's fence is directly behind this boarder and I'd prefer not to have my flowers vine all over it. Thanks for your help!

[Kisal]

The flowers aren't white, by any chance, are they? If they are, the plant isn't morning glory, it's bindweed. Spreads like crazy and very difficult to eradicate.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Heavy layers of mulch over wet cardboard can make it very unlikely that any seed (and seeds are always the hardest part about MG) get to the surface; root runners are also much corrected.

"Working with it" sounds very optimistic but I am not sure just how realistic an idea that is, unless you become very focused on making sure the seed never makes it to the ground. Otherwise this will be a recurrent nightmare. Deadheading right after flowering is your best bet, so vines should not be encouraged out of reach...

Kisal's question is also a good one...

HG

[LeeLee222]

I don't let it get to the flowering stage very often, but I think the flowers may have been white. Looks like I probably have blindweed. I'm not sure if I can hack the cardboard since it's a small space and there are a few other shrubs to work around but I'll give it a try. I can at least mulch heavily and try to fight it that way if I can't cover the whole area with cardboard. Thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate it.

[The Helpful Gardener]

S'what we do...

HG