How to kill Bindweed.

This is how to completely kill and get rid of Bindweed.

  • Watch for Bindweed appearing and growing in your garden, pulling it up doesn't work, the bits of root you leave will sprout and produce new growth. You could try digging deep enough to get to the bottom of the root system, making sure you remove even the tiniest bits of root.
  • Continually cutting the weed of at ground level can work by eventually starving the plant of light and draining energy from the root. This could take forever though.
  • Covering the Bindweed infected area with sheets of black plastic to starve the plant of light and drain energy from the root eventually kills it. However, once again this could take a long time and you will need to look out for and deal with shoots appearing from the edges of the plastic sheet.
  • The best way to kill bindweed completely, root and all is to treat the weed with Glyphosate as I have described below.

 

What's good about Bindweed?

 

Nothing, but grudgingly I suppose I quite like the delicate flowers which give of a soft fragrance and are Bee and other insects friendly. On the other hand, so are the plants and flowers it will eventually kill off and replace with a suffocating tangled mess of vine!  Kill it and control new growth.

The only sure way to control it is to kill the whole plant including the green and the roots, contact type weed-killers kill the leaves and stem, but leave the roots alive, to grow again.

 

 

What is Bindweed and how to recognise it

What is Bindweed ?

It is the very annoying weed with attractive pinkish white bell shaped flowers and green arrow shaped leaves that winds its way across your garden, under and over fences. Up the stems of garden plants and boundary hedges making a suffocating tangled mess of foliage. It is a gardeners nightmare, a single bindweed weed grows up to five feet in length from a deep strong root.

If left untreated it spreads and covers plants and shrubs in your garden suffocating them.

This is a picture of bindweed
This is bindweed

Where does Bindweed come from?

Bindweed comes from

  • Soil that has lain undisturbed for up to fifty years can contain seeds that can be awakened and spring into life by digging and building work going on in your garden. 
  • It also grows from roots, never ever put it in your compost heap, when you spread the compost you will almost certainly be spreading bits of bindweed. The tiniest piece of stem or root will eventually colonise your garden.
  • In soil or pots brought into your garden, It is worth checking plants you have bought in containers to make sure the plant pot is not a "Trojan horse" for the weed.

Keeping a garden free of bindweed.

  • Preventing this weed from getting into your garden is almost impossible, especially if it is growing in your neighbours garden, even gardens a few gardens away. It will creep under fences, garden walls almost nothing can stop it and its seeds are virtually impossible to keep out of your garden. Bind weed likes cultivated soil just like the soil in our gardens. 

The surest way to kill Bindweed

  • I find the best way to control Bindweed, I don't like using chemicals, but with bindweed I feel its justified. Is to ask your gardener to treat the growing leaves with weed-killer containing Glyphosate. This attacks the leaves and the roots and will kill the complete plant. Depending on the type of weed-killer used, you may need to repeat the treatment several times.  I use the undiluted Glyphosate and dilute it myself. It is a lot cheaper and better.
  • Look out for the inevitably new growth, either from seed or from under the neighbours fence and treat it as soon as it appears.
  • If your neighbour neglects the garden, it is almost impossible to stop it creeping back over, under and through neighbouring fences and walls. You could try asking  them to control it.  However, it is probably easier to check now and again and destroy it yourself. 

Cheapest, best and my way of killing Bindweed


 
If you are killing and clearing a large area of Bindweed, I would advice using this concentrated (360g/l)  weed-killer, rather than the sprays. 
Always check Strength actually is 360g/l when buying concentrated Glyphosate weed-killer from other sources

 

 Don't be frightened off by the price, this two Litre bottle (360) Dilutes to treats up to 3332 sq/m

Strongest Weed killer available online in the U.K. For uncertified Use. Contains 360 g/l glyphosate,

One Litre Treats Over 0.4 of an Acre Offering the Best Value Available.

Gallup Home&Garden is a domestic weed killer that contains 360 g/l glyphosate for effective control of annual and deep-rooted perennial garden weeds, including grass, docks, nettles, Willow herb, dandelion and bindweed. Kills most weeds in one application with no need to re-apply. A single two litre bottle treats up to 3332 sq/m.

Always check Strength actually is 360g/l when buying concentrated Glyphosate weed-killer from other sources.


flowerpotman.com

A brilliant tip here sent to my guest book, thank you Francis

 

Just to add to the help page on controlling or eliminating Bindweed. I thought your subscribers might find this addition helpful.

Having done battle with Bindweed in my garden when I lived in Cardiff (where it rained regularly) over many years, I found that the way to overcome the plants was to unpick the creeper off the garden plants, minimising damage to the Bindweed, and to gather its stems and leaves -everything above ground - into polythene bags, so the bags would end up upside down and the plant would remain viable (for a few days). I would then apply/spray the glyphosate into the polythene bag and then gently tie it off at its open end, and leave the weed killer to do its work over several days. This allowed the toxins to be carried well into the root system over several days, minimised the amount of weed killer needed, meant that it could be used right next to delicate garden plants - and was a solution that worked even when was raining regularly.

I thought Bindweed was bad. I moved house to Reading, and discovered Horsetail, and that dealing with Bindweed was like being on the Kindergarten slopes of weed control. I still have roofing felt sheets down after 3 years and stuff popping up wherever it likes (even through the felt sheeting in places).