bindweed!!! help!

[joshbuchan]

ok I am pritty ticked of.. I got bindweed coming from next door going all throught my veg patch!! I have been diging it out for the last 2 days but it just seems to be everywere and keep poping up! I am thinking about digging up the walk way to get it all out.

but is there anything I cna put down to keep it out of my garden. theres nothing growing yet, but my shed is next to the garden and also next to my nabouir so I am sure theres loads of the stuff under there so I am going to need soming to get ride of it! dose anybody know anything I could use?

[rainbowgardener]

"bind root" is this the same as bindweed, which is like wild morning glory?

If so it is nasty stuff, spreads like crazy and one little piece left in the ground just keeps growing and growing.

Control is basically pulling and mulching and NEVER letting it go to seed.

Here's a little article (that has a picture, to be sure we are talking about the same stuff) :

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=108311&highlight=#108311

[joshbuchan]

Putting sugar in your planting holes .... wrong thread I think

bindweed might be the name, it looks like a white root that just keeps on growing!!!! it a tinly little bit of it left and it just keeps on growing!!! I am scered I will have to dig up my green house and shed to fully get it out! if I can find somthing that can kill it I can trace all the way back to the fence and put some poisen in a jar with the root in it so it sucks it up. I hope anyways! I have just been digging like a mad man, my back hurts, my hands hurt, my bum hurts cuz I fell over on the rake.... and it just keeps coming!!! I got my seedlins under a light in the propergater so I need to get this problem sorted soon.

shes a very old ladie next door with a big garden.... when her daughter come over in the summer to grow runners I might pop my head over and c if she wants a hand digging it all up! shes got some headges with ivey growing in it, that also needs sorting as its growing onto my house and will be at my window sometime soon... I hate big spiders and I know they live in ivey!

[rainbowgardener]

Indeed wrong link, don't know how that happened. Here's the one I meant:

https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/bindweed.html

However, what you said about white root, doesn't entirely sound like what we call bindweed (wild morning glory). And putting bindroot or bind root in Google turns up nothing but some very esoteric computer speak.

(But all the control strategies in the article probably apply equally well to any other invasive vine like that.)

If your bind root isn't the wild morning glory, then you might need to find someone locally to ask -- unless one of all the UK based members speaks up here!

[JONA878]

By far the best control I have found is with 2-4D. I don't know by what trade name that is available in the states.
Glysophate will also do the job.
Bruise tha plant by treading on it and then spray.
The big problem with Bindweed is its root system.
The roots are made up of jointed nodules. When you use a weedkiller on the plant it kills the first couple of joints. This encourages the next couple of nodules to break and so the plant above ground appears to double in quantity...so you think you have made the problem worse.
Persevere and you will eventually win through....but it does take time.

Jona.

[JONA878]

Sorry...........just read that the post was from the UK.
Over here 2-4D is available as Armine or Dormone.

Glysophate ...Roundup.

[joshbuchan]

ahh roundup how long will it take to disapear after I poor it on? I am planing on growing veg here in the summer.

I am thinking of digging my garden like a 1ft deep to get it all out! I have got a bag full of the stuff, I will take a pic 2moz and upload it so u can have a look at it.

also when u say crush it abit, if u evan tuch it it snaps into like 3 bits...

[joshbuchan]

I am also thinking I am going to have to make raised beds and put somthing on the bottem so it dose not grow up if I cant keep it out of the garden...

[JONA878]

This is the one weed that if you want to be truely organic then you are going to have to dig..dig....dig..and....dig.
I've done as you are thinking Josh and made raised beds.
On the heavy clay here on the weald bindweed is just about impossable to remove completely by cultivation. It grows such a network of roots that you always miss some.

[joshbuchan]

but the groud is so fertile! its been dug since my grandad and his grandad poored manuire here... I live in a old victoreion house which has been in my family for genorashions! but I dnt want to just give up on that if u know what I meen... its been left to me now. I dnt rly mind if I have to use somthing chemical to compleatly get ride of it aslong as it will be gone for when I start my plants of. I will have to look into this roundup stuff as I have seen it everywere but allways looked down on it. thansk for your great help!!

[Kisal]

Roundup is what I had to resort to in order to get rid of the bindweed in my yard. I don't like to use herbicides, but after spending 3 solid years trying to dig the stuff up, I gave in and got the Roundup.

It's been many years since I've used it, but as I recall, the label says to wait 7 days before you plant anything new in the treated area. Read the label before you buy it to be sure the information hasn't changed.

Boston Ivy and bindweed are the two plants that are almost impossible to get rid of by manual means alone.

[rainbowgardener]

Well, before you start spraying poisons around, I hope you will at least stop and think a little a learn about what you are doing, so that you can make an informed choice (maybe there was a reason you always looked down on the Roundup! )

Here's a thread to start with, where the topic has been discussed here with pros and cons and lots of info:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7787&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=roundup&start=0

If you are going to use it, glyphosate generic is better than Round-up, because some of the "inert" ingredients in Round-up are also harmful. And glyphosate is better than 2,4 D (also known as Agent Orange in case you remember that!) and other long lasting super toxins.

You can also kill weeds with boiling water, flame throwers, vinegar, and citrus based non-toxic organic herbicides-- one is sold as Nature's Avenger.

[JONA878]

If you are going to use it, glyphosate generic is better than Round-up, because some of the "inert" ingredients in Round-up are also harmful. And glyphosate is better than 2,4 D (also known as Agent Orange in case you remember that!) and other long lasting super toxins.

I think you'll find Rainbow that Agent Orange was 2-4.5T.
It used to be used as a brushwood killer but is now banned.
Jona

[rainbowgardener]

[quote="JONA878"
I think you'll find Rainbow that Agent Orange was 2-4.5T.
It used to be used as a brushwood killer but is now banned.
Jona[/quote]

OK sorry, you are right.... doesn't change my basic point much, but I do try to be accurate. Sorry I messed up on that one.

[joshbuchan]

rainbow u were .1 of, not a big deal really. but has still left me to wounder whats best, roundup or glyphosate and whats the cheapest

if I can just get it all out my garden then all I need it for it to spray under the shed and along the bottem of the fence.

[applestar]

From what JONA is saying, it doesn't sound like you can actually kill the plant. That being the case, what if you dig a trench all along the fence line, then put some kind of a barrier in it -- weed mat? line trench with weed mat and fill with gravel? corrugated roofing panels? sheet metal?

Once you put a stop to the incursion, you can deal with what's on your side of the fence and know it's gone. And offering to help your neighbor get rid of it is a great idea and a wonderful gesture.

[rainbowgardener]

glyphosate generic is less harmful than roundup and probably cheaper, but probably not as easy to find...

[joshbuchan]

applestar thats a great idear! I am going to have a look at how much some of this weed mat stuff costs. I can get free gravle as my uncle is a biulder. (also were I get all my sand)
I will also try and get some of this glyphosate generic but if I cant I will have to setle for roundup....

thanks everybody for all your wonderfull help!

[Toil]

so what kind of damage does this plant do? Does it choke off veggies? Noxious? Ugly?

[Kisal]

I don't think it's ugly at all. It looks like morning glories, with white flowers. Sometimes the flowers have a little pink tinge in the throat. Kind of pretty, in fact.

Yes, it chokes everything it grows on ... trees, shrubs, hedges, you name it. And it spreads by both runners and seeds, so once it gets a foothold, it just grows rampantly. Everywhere. Constantly. It's as bad as English ivy. Maybe even worse. I hate the stuff!

Back in the early 80s, when I finally resorted to Roundup to get rid of it, there was no "generic" version of that product. My SO and I had just bought that house, and were trying to put in a garden. We literally dug out bindweed almost daily for 3 solid years. Although neither of us liked the idea of using an herbicide, we finally decided that it really would be nice to have time to do something else at some point in our lives, other than dig out bindweed.

[a0c8c]

Yes, it chokes everything it grows on ... trees, shrubs, hedges, you name it. And it spreads by both runners and seeds, so once it gets a foothold, it just grows rampantly. Everywhere. Constantly. It's as bad as English ivy. Maybe even worse. I hate the stuff!

I would say it's much worse than English Ivey. Grows so much faster, it took only 4 days to smother a 6 foot tall sunflower.


As far as the fence goes, I'd use thick heavy plastic to make the barrier, and dig it down a good 2 feet. Sound ridiculous digging down that far, but bindweed is that hard to control. I purposely grew it at my mother inlaws house, but only because I knew my mother inlaw wouldn't take care of her plants and it's very hardy here. That and it covered a 15 foot fence ver easily.

[gixxerific]

Is this what you are talking about? I found it [url=https://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/bindweed.htm]here[/url] I look at several sites trying to find a better way that using Roundup, but unfortunately that was the main theme of what I found. Paint it on to at least minimize the damage to the soil around it. Good luck
[img]https://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/bindweed1.jpg[/img]

[joshbuchan]

yes thats what it looks like! but I am also digging out theys realy long white roots...

[Toil]

it's sad to have to resort to roundup, but if everyone were as reluctant and well informed as the people on this thread, pesticides wouldn't cause so many problems.

My dad used it for a huge poison ivy vine. He filled one of those little ampoules you get on the tip of roses, stuck in the end, and let it go for a few days. Total eradication. Seemed like a good use.

Oh man I just turned less organic!

[gixxerific]

Oh man I just turned less organic!

I oughta slap your hand but mine still hurts from slapping myself for kinda somewhat recommending (mumble mumble under my breath) Roundup.

[cynthia_h]

From U.C. Davis, agricultural research center of the University of California system:

https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/field_bindweed.html

Their page about Convolvulus arvensis, aka bindweed, aka wild morning glory, aka several other things.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Kisal]

... aka several other things.

Yes. I have called it many different names. Most of them aren't fit to print.

[cynthia_h]

@ Kisal: and I know what you mean--I struggled with English ivy and Bermuda grass for quite a while in Berkeley...I can call plants names in more than one language...odd skill, but there you are...

Sometimes it's difficult to be sure that we're talking about the same plant (a client's office space is dealing with bindweed...) without the scientific names.

However, in the case of this little beast, the scientific name itself has been a source of confusion.

Most of the beautiful morning glories gardeners *like* to grow--the reds, purples, blues, etc.--are different varieties of Ipomoea spp., which belongs to the Convulvaceae family of plants (which is absolutely huge).

Bindweed's scientific name is Convulvulus arvensis *and* it's a member of the Convulvaceae family as well. So a very selective and [sorry ] truncated family tree looks like this:

Bindweed: Convulvaceae => Convulvulus => arvensis [aka prairie morning glory, aka noxious pest , Demon from h***, Spawn of Chaos, etc.]

Morning Glory: Convulvaceae => Ipomoea => purpurea ("purple") [aka Common Morning Glory]

Scientific names may also help us discover previously unknown relationships among plants:

Sweet Potato: Convulvaceae => Ipomoea => batatas ("potato") [aka Sweet Potato]

Good luck with C. arvensis.

Cynthia

[joshbuchan]

ok I am 100% sure its bindweed not morning glory. heres a pic of the roots that I have been digging out!!!

[img]https://farm1.static.flickr.com/197/441197975_f749c9c249.jpg[/img]