Topic: Bindweed

[Barnowl]

There are some non-invasive convolvulus which are quite pretty, but OH won;t risk it in the garden.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/211.shtml

[dandelion]

There are some non-invasive convolvulus which are quite pretty, but OH won;t risk it in the garden.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/211.shtml

I recently bought Cneorum to plant in my front cover. It's a neat little bush with silver leaves, not at al like the bindweed that grows on the lottie!

[antipodes]

Is that a true Morning Glory then?
Yeah maybe I am panicking, but since I don't want to use weedkiller, I will have to tackle it by hand. I know it won't stop me growing stuff but such a pain to have to weed all the time.
Will mulch keep it down? or does it just grow through it?
It is coming up out of the carpeted areas!!! It just creeps along till it finds the light! Bugger it! Pulled back the carpet edges and ripped it out.
In an attempt to tackle it, I am going to try planting squashes on thick mulch and see if it manages to get round those  ;D
I have heard it hates cultivated areas because they disturb it too much. Dunno if that is true though...

[Leopoldo]

I love Convolvulus cneorum - beautiful plant.

As far as I'm aware there are two types of bindweed which are persistent pain-in-the-arris weeds - hedge bindweed (the one with the white morning glory flowers that I used to peel back as a kid to reveal the orange bit inside) and field bindweed - groundhugging with pinky flowers - you seem to have this one antipodes... I'm glad I'm only contending with couch, nettles and brambles on my allotment...

[dandelion]

Morning Glory is a climber with blue or purple flowers; I think the Latin name is Ipomaea.

Cneorum is a small shrub. This is the one I planted in my front garden:



Bindweed will grow through a loose mulch like bark, but (hopefully) not through black plastic! Don't despair, just dig up what you can, then keep on removing any new shoots that appear. Parts of my plot were full of bindweed when I took it on 18 months ago, but I managed to get rid of 95% of it. It does get easier! I grew potatoes in a badly infested part of my plot using the lazybed method. I kept pulling bindweed stems out, but eventually the potato foliage grew more vigorously and smothered the bindweed.  I removed all the bindweed roots I could when I dug the spuds up. This area is now a raised bed and almost bindweed free :)!

[antipodes]

Is it me or does it seem to like the potato patch? Out of the planted bits, that is where there is the most. But that is where it is quite easy to dig up too, as the potatoes are not that easily disturbed. I don't have the skill to do that hill thing with spuds, I will just put some straw around the base to keep them nice and dark and moist once the stems get higher. My friend does it like that and his spuds are brilliant.

[daisymay]

We have bind weed all over out plot and have found the only way of getting rid of it is to pain stakilngly dig it out, right down to the bottom of its roots which is about a foot down or even more sometimes...  during winter/ spring. As I am 6 months pregnant diggin the plot was not really an option for me this year and DH has been too busy redecorating the entire house to do it either!!

So where  it does crop up we this summer we will just hoe the top off during the growing period in a hope it will weaken it. Getting it to grow around canes is a good plan too.

Areas we will not be sowing for a while we have covered with carpet and black plastic, also in an attempt to keep it at bay.

I used to be daunted by it, I have kind of learnt to live with it now to be honest... worse things can happen....

[mc55]

From the gardenorganic website:

Persistence and Spread: Seeds can retain viability for at least 39 years when buried in soil. Seed sown at 20, 55 and 105 cm gave 41, 51 and 43% germination respectively after 10 years, 20, 43 and 51% at 30 years and --, 34 and 53% at 39 years.

Yikes - that is really depressing.  Have been digging mine out very carefully - am definitely winning the battle with the beds I've cleared, but the rest of the lottie is still ridden with it.  I've used roundup on it previously, but been very disappointed with the results - has only killed a couple of very small pieces. 

[Old bird]

Mexican Marigold is the thing to get rid of bindweed I am reliably informed.  Apparently this is a large plant (you have to plant it close to where the bindweed is)the bindweed does not like it and clears off.

Good luck - I have yet to find the seed for this type of marigold but am going to have a go!

 ;D

[Melbourne12]

http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/herb2.htm#H125

We've used this as a companion plant to repel unwanted insects, but I hadn't heard that it deters bindweed.

[caroline7758]

There was a question about this on GQT a few weeks back. As far as I can remember most of the panel said that mexican marigold itself was a bit of athug so didn't reommend it.