Bindweed

[silly billy]

Went up the plot today and saw the bindweed is coming up again.Whats your experience with this weed? I used some glyphosate on it today and I am wondering if it might be worth mixing up some sodium chlorate and using that on the boundaries of my plot and spraying the individual shoots.Would hoeing weaken it eventually?

[silly billy]

[sally_cinnamon]

Any chance you could post a pic of what it looks like when it sprouts out of the ground?  It's just that when I've been doing my digging, I found loads of roots which I was told were bindweed, but now I have lots of different things sprouting up and when I dig them up they all seem to originate from the same bits of root type!  Aaaargh!   >:(  :(  :'(  ::)

[antipodes]

some clever chaps told me today this is bindweed:
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q319/antipodes_photo/weed1-04_07.jpg
I thought bindweed was more a fine vine with white flowers. This has no flowers, quite a thick stem and small leaves.
Any ideas? Or maybe this is just the baby version before it launches a full scale war :(

[Melbourne12]

Went up the plot today and saw the bindweed is coming up again.Whats your experience with this weed? I used some glyphosate on it today and I am wondering if it might be worth mixing up some sodium chlorate and using that on the boundaries of my plot and spraying the individual shoots.Would hoeing weaken it eventually?

Sodium chlorate will kill it very effectively.  I've used it along our boundary fence.  But it prevents anything growing in the soil for many months, so don't spray it on areas where you want to grow anything.

The only effective method in the veg beds is to patiently dig it out, and keep doing so.   But however much you dig, it'll come back to some extent and rapidly re-establish itself.  We use glyphosate on the first bindweed growth as we're preparing the beds.  But once you've planted the bed, all you can do is to pull it up as it emerges.

[tim]

That's not bindweed! Which is as you say.

I have found Roundup to work over many years. I just let it grow to a foot or so, spray it & cover it from the rain. If it's really got a grip on things, just tear it down to the ground & regrow.

[caroline7758]

Didn't think that pic was bindweed. Spent this morning digging some out- quite satisfying in a masochistic sort of way! You won't see any flowers yet, just little shiny heart-shaped leaves with thick white roots which snap annoyingly easily. Search the forums here & you'll find many a member ranting about the evils of bindweed!I dig them out or put a stick in the ground for them to twine up.

[sally_cinnamon]

or put a stick in the ground for them to twine up.

That sounds interesting! (And ever so much less work!)  How does it help?
:)

[caroline7758]

Stops it twining up your plants! And you end up with a big mass of it round the stick, so you can then get even more satisfaction when you dig it out, or you can just cut it off at the base & let it grow up again.

[Melbourne12]

A very nice chap took a half lottie on our site in 2005.  His philosophy, he told us, was to "live with" the bindweed.  He used the training up sticks method.  Halfway through last year he gave up the lottie in despair.   :(

[antipodes]

Tim says my pic is not bindweed but what does he think it is then?
I have seen bindweed before and I didn't think this was it. I would be surprised as the other plots on our lotties are very well established and don't seem to have any weeds at all!! I didn't see this stuff at all over the winter. It sort of comes up in a group of several leaf heads, then tends to sprawl outwards in a circular pattern.  The roots do seem to spread a fair bit under the soil - right where the seedlings are of course. B**ger.
I remember it trying to choke a crop of beans, when I helped a friend on an allotment a few years back. We just pulled it off everytime, it kept coming back, but with a bit less fervour each time. It is a bloody nusiance. I am using no chemicals so it will just be dig it up ad infinitum I guess :-( Does smothering it do any good? Or does it just travel away from the covered areas?

[Trevor_D]

My resident expert thinks it's convulvulous minor. If so, it will have a small pinkish flower. She says it's - to use the technical term - a bugger!

Spray with glyphosate and then cover with black plastic to exclude the light. If it hasn't started to die back in about three weeks, spray again. Then dig it out and seive.

Have you got a picture of the actual roots? Bindweed is unmistakable. (I've seen a few miles of it in my gardening!)

[tim]

Agree - but do it sooner than later. Like when it is no more than a foot long.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I dig it out every year; I've just been exterminating a patch today. Every year there's less of it. One day it'll be gone.

[dandelion]

I dig it out every year; I've just been exterminating a patch today. Every year there's less of it. One day it'll be gone.

And when you've got rid of the last bit of rhizome and relax, a seed will sprout:

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.

Can't imagine someone keeping bindweed seed for 39 years to do this experiment  ::). And does this mean they planted the seed 105 cm deep ??? ??? :o

[Robert_Brenchley]

It sounds that way. But the seed is on the small side, and it doesn't sound too plausible!

[tim]

Commendable, Robert - presumably from the veg garden? I was at cross purposes thinking of a fully stocked flower border where radical treatment is impossible.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I know the feeling! When I was a kid I got rid of loads successfully with copper sulphate nicked from the lab at school.

[antipodes]

Flippin' heck! This is a terrifying discussion.
Went down this morning to get a better look - it might be a relation of bindweed, its leaves are similarly shaped but smaller. It isn't everywhere but does seem to be in some places more than others, especially where I have planted things :-( There was a bit in with the onions but I pulled that up this morning.
It is tenacious - I spent a quick 20 minutes pulling out by hand any little shoots I saw and ended up with half a bin bag full!!! For the person who asked, the roots are white, travel underground and are hard to pull up, they seem to snap off. It is getting in with my peas!  >:( Grrr just when they are starting to sprout too! I pulled it all out by hand there.
I don't really want to use any weedkiller, maybe there is something organic? I guess I could just keep hoeing off the shoots everytime I see them? What is sodium chlorate?

[antipodes]

For those who have taken an interest in my pesky weed, I feel I may have located the true nature of this weed:
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weed.php?id=26
It looks more like this than a true bindweed. It's called black bindweed apparently. Anyone familiar with this?

[sarah]

yes, it is what most people mean by bindweed on the allotments; the other one is more prevelant in gardens i think (totally making this up). its all the same really, convulvulous. its a thing of the devil and you wont get rid of it (easily). the more you pick/weed it the more it will come back. i have it coming up all through my potato beds, it makes you want to yell and shout but at the end of the day you just have to find a way of just keeping on top of it, thats the best you can do really. dont mean to sound pessimistic, it wont stop you growing stuff.  ;)