I have bindweed everywhere along the margins of my farm - and it's very difficult to get rid of this plant! Also sometimes called by the name of its botanical cousin, morning glory, bindweed develops an extensive root system to spread in the garden. In this video, I'll discuss strategies to fight back against this perennial weed.
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Many years ago, a commentator on a BBC gardening programme said that the only way to get rid of bindweed is for you to deal with the surface layer and for a friend in Australia to deal with the roots !!
Lol. I like that!
LOL! That sounds about right. And add Bermuda Grass to that as well.
@@SpanishEclectic yes, omg, killing that is a nightmare lol
instead of a small plastic marker, use a longer cane to train it, the bindweed climbs the cane (direct the cane away from good plants) snip it off at the bottom every time it gets high enough so it spends all it's energy on vegative growth rather than sending it down to the roots, eventually it will weaken and die off, scortching with a blowlamp (or boiling water) instead of snapping off also helps weaken it faster as energy is used to try to repair it's self (cane method is also the best way to use chemicals applied with rubber gloves rather than spray if that's your choice) We get it intertwined on Honeysuckle that's trained over a large dome making chemicals difficult to use without killing the honeysuckle, birds nest in the honeysuckle and bring new bindweed seeds every couple of years, using the cane method solves it for us.
Glassback DIY l sure appreciate this solution. I have worked futilely to clear a particular area for years.
Sara Revesz I was having a problem with bindweed in my vegetable garden and now I have several raised garden beds and put down landscape fabric, haven’t seen one in two years
Dang. Boiling water is actually a brilliant idea. ❤
@@lighthousephoto7143I went to comment the same thing, absolutely brilliant
@@lighthousephoto7143 Boiling water is good for spot weed killing. My electric kettle boils minimum just under two cups. So one weed gets the left over. Seems to help on my garden path at no cost.
Never use a spade to dig up the roots. It just cuts them and gives thousands more plants. Always use a garden fork and loosen the soil around the roots. Do not try to pull them out until the soil, is thoroughly loosened.
My thoughts too 🙂
I agree…vigilance and a good garden fork!!!!
My brain says, no matter how or what one uses, it breaks, and can re-grow🤔.
I use a spade, and dig very deep. Then I turn the clump around, and continue digging a square meter or so. Sometimes I put the clumps on some tarp while I clean the hole. Then I tackle the clumps, and put the soil back. In that way, when new weeds appear it's easy to just pull it out, because the roots are not so long, or deep. It works for me.
My father grew up in eastern Nebraska during the 1930’s and 40’s. He told me that bindweed was such a problem that they organized bindweed control districts, governmental organizations devoted to organizing efforts against this weed.
Our Community Garden had 20' x 30' plot that we covered in heavy black plastic as a demonstration of weed control. After a year all weeds were gone... except bindweed. It had a huge network of roots just under the plastic. It was very healthy & happy. My guess is that it escaped & grew beyond the plastic. I enjoy your videos. Thank you.
I did the same under landscape fabric. The roots were happy to use it as a subway. I use agricultural vinegar pull up one side of the landscape fabric and spray the roots in the walkways and beds
I have this bindweed in my front garden . For the last 3-4 years, spring through to summer , I am constantly pulling it off my shrubs and digging up the roots ; it has definitely got weaker and less of a problem now. I never let it get to the flowering stage , good luck everyone with your bindweed battle 🙂👍
Thanks. I'm seriously looking forward to getting to this stage.
For ornamentals, I agree that this is the best approach. Grab it when you see it, and don’t allow it to flower. It becomes weaker with time.
@@DovidM yes! The flowers are easy to identify so git 'em before they mature and eliminate the seed pods even before they can appear. Glassback DIY also has a great method.
My neighbor let those thing grow up to the side of his house 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ I have to say it got a bit better after 3and half years. I find cover with the fabric is not a solution because after around 10 years they poke through the fabric. Not just the bindweed but also the dandelions and the blackberries. If you have have clay soil, you develop flood on a heavy rain.
If you just want to clear an area of all weeds, or want to remove it from between trees and shrubs where you can’t dig up. Best thing I’ve found is brushwood killer, brush it onto the leaves with a paintbrush and be careful not to get it into any plants you don’t want to kill. If you have some blue/purple food die, mix it into the weed killer so you can see which leaves you’ve treated… the more you get the more effective it will be. You’ll have to follow it up with another application or two after a few months just to be sure. But it works well for removing it from between other plants
I spend half my life digging this out of my garden. After having a new fence put in, it sprouted along the entire length of the fence, almost as though it had been pre-seeded with the weed, but in reality probably as the result of soil disturbance. It grows at an alarming rate and to a great depth!
I was told the only way to get rid of it was to move.I now believe it!
The roots can go down 10 feet and the seeds can remain dormant for 50 years. I'm sure if we could find a way to use it for food, it would get diseases and die off.
Wow, thank you Marylin - never knew that. Please tell me, is it also futile to try and kill the blighters by persistently applying a systemic weedkiller?
LOL ! Marilyn ! IKR !
Yup! Lol!!! I'm so SICK of always pulling them!
Apparently horses find it a tasty treat.
Had problems with it in the past. Despite lots of manual effort, in the end I resorted to a herbicide. Cleared it up completely. I found that knocking it back as soon as I saw it was the best strategy 👍
did you use it when it had enough leaves to be sprayed as shoots came up in spring? I saw most advise says to spray herbecide when its in flower
I live in Ireland and sad to say the problem is just as bad here! I used Glyco in two areas, I was very careful to avoid spray drift. Using the foam setting instead of spray, I held the nozzle within 10mm of the leaves to deposit the foam directly on them. However I got a nasty surprise, the two fully grown shrubs (under which the bind weed roots were growing)- partly died back - about 30% of each shrub was lost! I suspect the shrub's roots were in contact with the weed root and they absorbed the glyco. ??. Is that possible?
Put the collected vine, still attached to the roots underground, inside a clear plastic bag and spray the herbicide inside bag onto the foliage. This contains and concentrates the herbicide while ensuring it gets transported to the underground tuber structure.
What herbicide do you recommend using? I have this vine everywhere around my garden and by my rose bushes. While the flowers look lovely, it chokes out all my other plants. Need to get radical this year. Is there anything you would recommend that would not contaminate the soil with harmful chemicals as I need to kill the vine in my vegetable garden. Thank you!
Thank you for the information on the dreaded Bindweed and explaining that Bindweed has a completely different root system than the beautiful Morning Glory. Morning Glory being started by seed, is an annual flower whereas Bindweed is a perennial that pops up anywhere. I was shocked at how large your Bindweed had grown.
You should see mine. I am forced to use the isolate and spray method. It is under the massive rocks on my rockery!
I joke that we sold our first house to escape the bindweed. Twenty years and two properties later, it finally tracked me down. I found it in a new garden bed last summer, so I lifted all of the (thankfully small) shrubs and perennials, sprayed the bindweed with RoundUp (which I only use on the worst weeds), waited for it to reach the roots, then excavated the entire bed, digging deep and sifting the soil to find any roots. So far this year, I see no signs of the beast. Of course, it also popped up in two established beds, climbing up around some very desirable plants. I carefully unwound several feet and brushed on RoundUp and used newspaper to keep the painted vines from touching my babies. Again, so far, so good this year, but now I'm on a constant lookout for those distinctive leaves. I.Will.Not.Give.In.
Your vigilance is paying off!
I could never endorse the use of Round Up! I had a dog pass away at age 7 suddenly. We had an autopsy done and the dog was found to have excessive levels of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Round Up. We have the most polluted waterways in the world thanks to chemicals, just count how many bottles of round up leave Home Depot in an hour, on any day of the week. I'll pull the bindweed manually when it first comes up and then torch it with a weed burner the rest of the year. We should all embrace organic gardening methods!
I'm right there with you! Our property was blessed with not only trash, but the bindweed kept company with Virginia creeper, cheet grass, foxtails, and the worst of all, whitetop. I have carpel tunnel from all of that!
That is NOT funny! I might be forced off my garden patch by bindweed...
@@jongray6159 I agree with you, and I've used it very sparingly and only as a last resort. I have dogs and horses, so I fence off any treated areas and then bag up the dead bindweed and roots.
I agree with Marilyn, years ago I had nothing in my garden worth worrying about, so one day I got bolshy and decided to see how far the root went, I have a terraced house with a 20 foot long garden, 15 feet I followed it toward the house before it dived a good 6 feet under the main drain pipe it even branched under and over it, needless to say I don't like it and attack it every year trouble is, it comes in from the next doors garden now as well
Keep the bindweed knocked down throughout the season using all these techniques (never let them flower if possible; 3 seeds per flower & the current data says seeds last up to 60 yrs in the soil), but know that the general consensus is to really go after field bindweed chemically in the fall. Why? Because as the weed starts drawing energy/nutrients from the leaves back into the roots, spraying in the fall will concentrate the weed killer chemicals in the roots, incteasing your chances of finally killing off the roots. As w/ most weedkillers, make sure to have plenty of leaf matter for the chemical to stick to, & if granular, be sure the leaves are damp so the granules stick.
Thank you! I am overwhelmed with this vine and I have dug up many feet of roots, piles . Absolutely love your channel for all kinds of garden wisdom. Bindweed are tenacious.
Try a large milk carton with a side flap containing a concentrate of Glyphosate then cover it with a larger container to prevent it being diluted by rain and put a length of strong bind weed into the first container, over time it will take the poison to the main root and kill it hopefully takes time but works.
Hahaha - "It wants to take over the entire world"! Great videos ~ Thank you (from Michigan)!
I only recently identified this as "Bindweed". For 10 years I've been personally calling it "Devilweed". The freaking stuff does not die. Interestingly, my infestation doesn't have the size you show in your video. Leaves vary in size between my thumbnail, and maybe larger to 1 to 1.5" long on larger outbreaks, but nothing even close to the size you show. But, that's the little flower, and the leaf shape and vining are the same. It gets into everything. Comes up through the middle of everything and just twines around it all. It gets into my Clematis and chokes that. I don't really like chemicals, but the year before last I took 3 months at the end of the year cleared the mulch out, and hit it with weed killer. What I was using actually worked (for once, it's shrugged off everything else I've tried), and for the last two to three months of the year hit every new sprout with weed killer trusting the advertising "kills to the root". The stuff started fading. New sprouts looked less healthy, weaker. I stopped with the chemicals because I didn't want to turn my garden bed into a chemical dump. Figured I finally got it. Nope. It's back, and robust as always. So, I've resigned myself to well mulched garden beds, and every time I get a vine climbing through that I pull it out at the dirt line, hopefully pulling up a bit of tap-root as well. Thanks for the video.
I eradicated bind weed from my present garden. I dug it out using a fork and NOT a spade and certainly not a small garden trowel. The fork allowes the roots to be dug up without being broken and you must gently coax up a particular root sequence and not pull hard on it and break it below the ground as the broken off piece will quickly regrow from the cut off point. Complete eradication of bindweed is the only long term solution and can be done if you are single minded enough. Bindweed generally arrives in your garden as a 'Trojan Horse' piece of root in another plant, so you must be always eternally vigilant, particularly with plant gifts you get from infected gardens
You nailed it in all departments....thank you for the upload mate !
I've certainly used the 'bottomless' flowerpot method to spray but I have eradicated the weed very easily from my gardens with glyphosate doing the following: mark the spots where the bindweed is growing when it first appears - direct the bindweed shoots to climb the cane not the shrub - let them grow - about 2 to 3 ft. After this when the point of killing it comes I gently take the cane out and twist opposite to the way the bindweed grows and it falls off the bamboo cane in a nice long strip. Take your small glass jar or sealed plastic container and bury in the ground near the site of the bindweed so about 1/4 of the container is above soil level. Gently fold and push the long length of bindweed into the pot. Dilute your glyphosate to half the recommended amount and fill the jar gently with an old jug, cove the top gently with old slate of clay pot to prevent anything getting at it - or rain splash onto anything nearby. Leave a couple of weeks, plant drinks the weedkiller and dies. When removing the pots - I cut the dead pieces of weed round the pot to ensure the whole pot comes away without spilling anything - this can be safely poured onto the compost heap as now inert. Like all tough weeds (which I have the utmost respect for) it may regenerate partly but that can be expected. This method I have had 100% success with but it requires patience and persistence. I have hand dug as well before which is a lot more hit and miss, especially in established borders. My method with the jars and glyphosate works exceptionally well in established borders. I would say that 99% of all my weed removal is by hand - bindweed infestations are the 1%!
Thanks for sharing your method. I still have some tough patched left that I'll be trying to tackle this year.
I’m glad you’ve had so much success with this method! Can you tell me how many years it took to get to ~100%? I’m on my second year using this dilution method but only the first year training my field bindweed up bamboo . The first year I waited too long and ended up pushing big arm fulls(!) of the stuff into gallon plastic milk containers before filling them with dilute glyphosate. It seems like progress was made though because there is no longer BW sprouting from my foundation and because this year I’m able to use smaller 32oz containers. Btw the ground is too hard so I skip the step of digging holes for the containers…
A problem I have encountered in a previous garden is that the sort of roots you show will link to a much thicker root, maybe 0.75 inches, that can run for several yards. I found that following these for as far as possible and removing them drammatically reduced the problem for the following year. There were still many occurences of bindweed, but as often as not the growth I removed would come out with its complete root.
You are correct! Our garden is full of bindweed and really only constant 'weeding' halts its inexorable invasion!
Thank you! This was really helpful!! Never saw or heard of this until 4-years ago, when it showed up in my front yard!!!! Now it’s also in my backyard!! I will definitely start spraying it ASAP!!!!!!
That stuff was all over the overgrown Vancouver area garden I took over. I eradicate it section by section with a thick layer of cardboard covered with wood chips or compost. Shoots that find their way out are mostly week and can be pulled out easily. After a few months, the bindweeds are mostly gone, and weeds - including bindweed roots - that try to establish tend to be easy to pull out from the loose mulch layer.
Thanks Waldemar. Happy to know that the sheet mulch approach can work.
I did the same to my allotments, but just covered the whole thing with weed membrane. I pull out anything that pops up and it's getting very weak now. It can survive without sun for 2 years but after that it will eventually die off
Could I do this but leaving my shrubs or,would I have to dig out all my established phlox and shrubs? This is genius!
@@TomTomTomTom538 is the membrane plastic? If so it has bpa's , look them up.
I did the same and it's the only thing that has successfully worked
I recently learned that field bindweed here in Utah, which may be different from this particular type as its leaves are very arrowhead-shaped, can grow vertical roots 50 feet deep, and each horizontal root also grows 50 deep at each section which are pretty close together. Essentially, it's indestructible and impervious to everything except consistent weed torch application. Other than that, cut, dig, (or pull if you must) every 3-4 days.
Thank you for your sensible, practical and knowledgeable information. I look forward to your videos.
In the RHS garden at WIsley bindweed was growing in a border. The gardeners installed a structure of sticks for it to climb on, keeping it away from the specimens in the border. This would help them to keep from causing unwanted damage to the other plants when it came time to spray the weed.
I have chemical sensitivities, so no toxic chemicals for me. I have a propane weed killer. It works well, maybe all the 1st time, but bind weed and thistles both burn. You don't have to burn the whole plant, just a small part above the ground and long enough for the heat to follow the root into the ground. The root gets killed by the heat of the burning.
Super helpful Jason - thank you! 🌹
the Bindweeds are absolutly beautiful flowers!👏💯🤗💜🌎😷
I stuffed a few feet of the vine into a plastic bag and sprayed glycophosphate into the bag. Worked for bindweed and sort of for brambles.
Thanks Susan.
Susan, I do the same thing, not often, but it is the only thing that will kill bind weed and common grape vines.
Weeds 😫 lots of work no easy answer. Thanks for sharing your challenge 👍❤️😊
Today, I attempted your 2nd way to remove bindweed. I found a brush on application poison that is coloured bright orange and spent a good hour painting on this poison. I have dug most of it up over the past 5 yrs and have almost eradicated it. I will update you in a few weeks to let you know the outcome. Great video btw. Jo ( New Zealand)
Firstly, I'm totally envious of your beautiful soil! I'm in Southern California, and have a large area I've added to my yard that is about three feet deep with clay. I'd let the 'ground morning glories' grow because they were the only pretty thing there. I just realized it was actually bindweed. Ours has smaller leaves (oval, about an inch long), and the flowers are just over an inch across. Right now most of it has gone brown, and is easy to scrape up off the surface. Over the last few years I've done sheet mulching with cardboard, but not thicker than two inches. In the spring the bindweed grows up through and flowers. People have said shade discourages it, but the shady corner is the only place there are new green clumps of the stuff. It looks line I have a new battle on my hands. At least I got rid of the tumbleweeds. When I acquired the property it was covered in 6ft tall grass weeds and four prickly varieties of plantain type weeds, with a 6 inch layer of weed seeds at the bottom. Thanks for addressing this issue. I adore your fantastic roses!
I use Glyphosate. This is a "translocating" herbicide: it is absorbed through the foliage and translocates into the root system. To avoid spray drift, the safest method is to apply it by hand. Make a strong mix, 50/50 with water, in a jar or pot .Add a squirt of detergent. This helps it stick to the bind weed leaves and makes it more viscous, so less likely to drip. Now put on rubber gloves, followed by cheap cotton e.g. decorators gloves over the rubber gloves. And now, to battle... Dip your fingers into the mixture to wet the cotton gloves, then carefully dab, smear or grip the bind weed leaves avoiding the host plants it is climbing through. Dab as much as you can of the foliage. In fact, this method works best when the weed is well into growth, or about to flower. After a few days, yellowing will occur, and it will die back over 2-3 weeks. Any vines still unaffected can be re-treated then. You will most likely need to repeat this treatment 2 or 3 times. If the host plants are low-growing, shove-in some tall canes or brushwood for the bindweed to climb up. You can then easily treat it without getting herbicide on the good guys underneath! If you accidentally apply the mix onto your host plant, just cut that bit off to prevent the herbicide being taken in. Another way I have used is to untangle the bindweed and lay it flat on the ground away from the host plant, then dab or squirt it with the mix. Of course, this is not so easy, especially if the vine is twining into a prickly rose! Best to wait, if you can bear it, until your host plant is well swamped, remember, the more leaves treated, the more root will die out. Good luck! Nick.
My ex was a fencer and he had some extra privacy fence that is put up while a fence is being built.... we layed this down and discovered that it worked really well in killing the weeds. I have raised beds and i'm thinking of laying some privacy fence down in the pathways to keep things from getting out of hand. I have a big battle to deal with first though! It took over my garden last year and I didn't have time to manage it.
When using weed killer in an area close to other plants use a paintbrush to apply, no danger of overspray. For larger areas such as grass you want to get rid of a paint roller works well also. The bonus is you may never buy WK again one quart concentrate may last forever.
I have a small bindweed problem. Since my garden area is not large, I use the chemicals you mentioned, but paint then on the leaves with a small brush. As soon as I see a plant, I treat it. I feel this gives a greatest chance of killing the roots . This year (so far) no bindweed spotted
Thanks for this. I've got a small area of garden which seems to sprout this stuff regardless of what i do. It's being turned into a decorative gravel area to help with drainage, so hopefully that combined with a barrier and a dose of WK will see most of it off.
Thank you so much. We have this and it chokes and literally binds the plants.
Out here in the Desert SW, that is called Morning Glory, as Bindweed is much smaller with a very distinct leaf and a tiny flower....it creates a different kind of seed, one that is like the feathers of an airborne distributor, and it milks when it is cut!
Remember to not let it flower as it produces many seeds. The battle may be seemingly over from repeated digging and root segment eradication, but If you let it flower and re-seed itself you’re back to square one. I blew my knee out digging this on my farm. It’s a monster.
I read in one report that the seed can remain viable for 50 years!
Updated to 60 yrs, now. Yeah, it's awful.
Great video, and very relatable. Out of desperation, I did begrudgingly try a couple glyphosate applications last year but to no avail. It might depend in part on the species of bindweed. The field bindweed (C. arvensis) here in Northern California has narrower and smaller leaves than the species in this video, which may inhibit glyphosate uptake. There’s also recent literature supporting the possibility of bindweed glyphosate resistance at a molecular level (Huang et al. 2019). Bottom line for me - the bindweed in my neighborhood is a stubborn perennial reality. It grows prostrate like a mat close to my veggies, AND up the veggie stalks. So chemical warfare is simply not worth here, though it may work for other folks. Needless to say, this year, I’m back to the painstaking “keep at it” approach you suggested first. Happy growing and thanks for the video!
Thanks Duncan. I wish you success in your approach. Thanks for all the info.
I find better success with a combination of both glyphosate and 24d. Both at full strength rate in one mix.
It is a pain in the arse, but also theraputic to kill it. I grow mine up canes in spring, then in early summer I carefully untwine it, keeping the vine stem whole, and lay it flat in long strings on the ground; then I lightly bruise the leaves, take a paint brush and coat as many leaves as I can with glyphosate gel. Watching it over the next few weeks, slowly turning brown, and thinking of the poison coursing through the root system is so gratifying :) I've managed to nearly eradicate it over three years using this method. It is now confined to one corner of one flower bed only, and is currently dying of glyphosate :)
What brand u use? I'd like to know. They are getting in my grass
glyphosate gel is great for treating plants where you can't spray without hitting desireable plants even using barriers. I pull on heavy-duty rubber gloves, squirt the gel onto my gloved hands, & wipe it on the thistle/bindweed/etc. leaves from top to bottom. Wiped out a stand of thistle in a mahonia planting without losing any mahonia. Still working on the bindweed.
@@jenann292 I use Roundup gel
@@jenann292 Roundup. This is the brandname for glyphosate in the UK.
@@anneperlmutter3775 That's a great idea - will try.
Your soil looks amazing, so rich..
I had a border against a fence where I grew morning glory from seeds. In the years after it died off, I was plagued with bindweed along that 30 or so feet. I’m assuming that the morning glory seeded itself and created that nightmare. I’ve also experienced the same nightmare with goutweed, creeping Jenny and coltsfoot. I’ve been tempted to use roundup but have friends who used it quite liberally in their gardens and who are now, coincidentally or not, very sick. I also believe that weeds adapt and become more and more resistant to the weed killing chemicals. So, I won’t use the stuff myself, but I understand the desperation in those that do. Problem is, it’s a Pandora’s box. Now, I lay down cardboard quote thickly and cover with mulch. It’s not a permanent fix, but it’s a harmless control.
Roundup has been stringently restricted in many parts of Canada for years. It should be banned for use in food agriculture. It's a nightmare for the environment, and I have no doubt your neighbours' illnesses are related.
Sissy roots you have there! I've dug up some in my daughter-in-law ' s garden (it was her mother's rose garden so very special to her) the roots were about a foot down and 3/4" in diameter. I dug out all the soil I could without hurting roses and pulled out all the ones I couldn't dig and still it comes back. It's in the neighbour's driveway which runs along side it. I'm anti-chemical where ever possible and I broke down last summer and used the brand name product and it still came back! Thanks for this video, once the Covid is lessened, I will renew my efforts. I really appreciate that collar idea. I did try the weed barrier one year but as soon as I removed it to plant other in the 'new' soil, bind was back with a vengence, likely from the driveway. I think the only way I'm going eradicate it is thru chemicals. I've been dealing with Japanese knot weed in my own garden and it is easily knocked down for a while before I need to climb in and tackle it again. I've never been so ticked off at it that I felt the need to go chemical for this one but bind Weed is a whole other story
Ooof - bindweed and Knotweed too. Di you pick up some bad karma somewhere? Good luck, and thanks for sharing your experience.
Lots of bindweed in my garden. Went down a bare knuckle boxing approach, having a good clear up then planting stuff i wouldnt plant in an open bed ie mint and comfrey. They have beaten the bindweed and are useful and do not cause as much damage as the bindweed which climbs and smothers plants as you mentioned 😊
I have this in my front garden and have had 5 episodes of it growing inside my house!! 2 separate plants are being removed as I write this 1 half way up my stairs the other in my front room on an internal wall.
Convolvulus, as we call it in New Zealand, was my worst nightmare when we lived in the suburbs. When I was eight months pregnant with my younger son, I dug an infested area of our garden to get the convolvulus out. It was about ten square metres, and I dug down about three or four feet, and thought I had got out every single fragment of root. After the baby was born, and I had time to go back to gardening, a few months later, that area was as infested as it had ever been: the convolvulus was thick, solid, and covering the tops of the little old peach trees and all the ground!!!
Thanks Janette. That's sounds like a heck of a digging job for a rather unhappy outcome (I mean the weeds, not the baby just to clarify)
So sorry. Sounds awful. Congratulations on newborn
I had a year in New Zealand as exchange student. Wood north island
I'm in Northland. My neighbour never controlled his convolvulus.... there's a paper road between us but the convolvulus has crept right down the slope and is coming through my fence. I am pulling it nearly every day. Thinking about selling up!
I love this plant. It's night-blooming flowers are the most fragrant flowers I have ever smelled.
Different plant.
We have it coming from everywhere in the garden of our new home😓 thanks for this video 👍
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come. And now it begins...
Dry the roots to a desiccated state and then they are safe to add to the compost, they are a useful source of phosphate. been fighting bindweed for decades and tried all methods, you never win, you just stay boss.
Thanks. Right now it's the boss of me, but I hope to reverse the roles.
Bindweed, myrtle spurge, sumac tree, and Canadian Thistle. Those 4 "welcomed" us to our home 10 years ago due to negligence (resulting in tremendous overgrowth) from previous owner. Eradicated all but the bindweed. Soon as we finally controlled and killed off the sumac (has a root system that works much like the bindweed), the bindweed moved right into that space. Same for the myrtle spurge, which is a monster here along the Wasatch Front foothills. Got rid that after an 8 yr fight (still will find one here and there along our hillside but we take 'em out immediately)... Only the bindweed remains... and still loves to put up a good fight by spreading itself all over after just a week... Fun times.
Watched with great interest. I had a blackberry problem with a municipal walk-through and finally went at it with round-up in a spray bottle. I sprayed every leaf and it all died and dried up like cut hay. Didn't spray any on the ground.
Thank you for these tips, I will be trying the digging method first. I have moved into a rental where the garden has been at least 50% taken over with this plague. It has even killed a hardy and established native tree that would have once attracted birds.
This was very helpful ❤
I use a handheld wick applicator to kill stuff like bindweed. Since it's not a spray device and the quantity of weedkiller, generally glyphosphate, used is tiny there is little risk of damage to garden plants. All you do is wait for the wick to become damp and then wipe it along a couple of leaves of the offending plant. It's also very effective at controlling docks in grass and little or no damage is done to the surrounding grass if it's applied carefully.
Hi Jason, having showed us a rose and shrub which was overcome with bindweed you then didn't show how to eradicate/reduce the bindweed in that situation. I had a bed of hydrangeas of about 25 plants that were smothered by bindweed each summer and you couldn't get to where the bindweed plants were growing. In the end I resorted to lifting all the hydrangeas, allowing the bindweed to grow on its on and applied 2/3 applications of glyphosate. It did the trick. I don't want to use pesticides , but when needs must.
My garden was rife with bindweed. Being inexperienced with it back then, I dug out as much as I could. But it remained, as you said, in small pieces. Every year it would start to appear between crops. I could gently tease it out, but with a week there would be more shoot. I took to a much more vigourous digging. Making sure I got right down to the harder woody rhizome, about a foot down. This didn't do my crops much good at the time, but now, after 7 years, I almost never see any evidence at all. If I doo, the growth is weak and easy to dig out carefully - as much of the root system as possible. Don't let it go. Certainly don't let it flower, I read the seeds are viable for 100's of years like the poppy. My garden had been a horse paddock, left for maybe 10 years. Just about every weed we can expect to see was here in abundance. None has been as persistent as bindweed. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Nick. Good to know that raw muscle can do the job too
This weed was in my front yard, and it is trying to creep into the back yard where my garden is. It probably came in on a dirty rototiller, which is one reason I don't rent rototillers. Wasn't my idea! Anyway, glyphosate has worked in the front yard so far, after using it a few years. I am working on getting out of the area on the side of the house. The stuff is pushing up the asphalt! I don't spray, I wear chemical resistant gloves and paint it on the plant, making sure it comes in good contact with the leaves. I hate using this product, but I hate bindweed even more. Everything else here I do is organic style. This is my dirty little secret. We also have a bad case of hoary cress in back, and it made its way into my precious Grotto, I am tackling that this summer. There will be a deep barrier in the soil, very serious plastic sheets with cardboard and carpet on top, and a judicious use of the dreaded glyphosate. Don't get me started on the Virginia creeper! And the "wild" roses! Neighbors who plant invasive species along their fence lines with other neighbors are jerks!
For budget reasons I prefer not to rely too much on chemicals for my garden, but bindweed definitely changed my feelings on that! Unfortunately it's growing on the other side of my fence in an apartment's patch of dirt so I'll probably never be rid of it.
I like your marker idea. That's clever.
Wow, That thing is really an abrasive little plant!. This spring I planted about a dozen "Party Dress" Morning Glory vines around my yard and at this point they're doing fine; they're beautiful!🌺 But now, Im concerned since you mention Binweed is related to MG, I hope I don't end up regretting my decision 🤔 and adding it to my long list of yard battles.
Marcy Castillo ..... hopefully not although it may depend on where you live , we’re in the UK and I plant MG the electric blue colour that runs riot in Greece but over here it doesn’t manage to over winter by its root system, if I’m lucky I may find a few seeds that have sprouted if we’ve had a milder winter.
@@marieeab01 Thank you for your feedback, I find it interesting how different a plant can behave depending on its global location 🙂....It gets really hot here in Austin Tx and we get mostly mild winters....I am jealous of the snowy winters in the UK ❄❄❄
Just a request for you Jason looking for info about thrips on my roses . Bindweed, total pain! An exercise in Patients and persistence .
Thank you I see it's a worldwide problem , I live near Cambridge, England . My garden is ruined by Bindweed , we locally call it Bell vine , but it's getting better each year with vigilance of digging out the roots . Good luck
Nice video , I'm unable to use weedkillers at my allotment which is probably a good thing , however the bind weed is taking over my enthusiasm to try allotmenting. I won't give up though
I would say that this plant is the Hedge Bindweed, Calystegia sepium, rather than the Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis. Both are a nuisance, but the Hedge Bindweed is the one that spreads horizontally at such a rate.
I had a feeling that this "pretty little vine" near my spent tulips and hyacinths was up to no good and decided I didn't want it in the bed I was about to plant. I dug down very deep too, probably at least a foot, wondering as I removed them, "What are all these white carrot-y things?" I researched afterwards that it was bindweed and I was SO HAPPY I took the time to go that deep BEFORE I planted the rest of that bed. The next bed over, my partner simply removed the green tops, tilled the soil a little and planted perennials. Now every perennial over there is choking out and it's a constant battle. I notice that shade from bushes and peonies does keep the weed down a lot. But here is my dilemma: Over in the bindy bed (lol) there are established plants that I can't just lift so that I can dig out this stuff. I dug around my prettiest rose bush, and saw the bindweed roots completely engulfing and living very happily among the woody rosebush roots. There is NO WAY I can spray the bindweed with a chemical, and I can't get at all the roots either. My only recourse is to literally every Saturday morning get on my hands and knees and pluck the little green leaves so the roots starve. That's the only thing I can think of that I can do. Does anybody have a sense if that will be successful? And am I to understand that I will have this to look forward to next year too? The articles I read on it say that the seeds last 30 years... I won't even be here on this earth that long!
Oh-ma-gosh! This stuff is the bane of my gardening existence. Both from the vines and the million sprouts. Mine is much smaller leaves and flowers and will grow in areas that never even get watered. I live in Central WA state so pretty arid. I've heard that the roots can extend 25 ft down. The only good thing is that it produces so much leaf matter for mulching!
Unwanted cardboard works great as a weed barrier too. It’s a great way to reuse, reduce and recycle something that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Do remove the plastic tape and other fasteners. Another benefit is it will decompose back into the garden.
Thanks Stepanie. Good tip
I tried that.. it worked for a minute..
Cardboard blocking light does nothing at all for bindweed. it will just travels metres away underground
I tend to peel it carefully from whatever plant it has got on and coil it up on the ground. Then I spray it. It seems to be effective and it reduces the risk of affecting other plants.
Looks like nice dirt man, I love morning glories but roses are nice too.
Brilliant video! Thanks
I'm in the same climate zone as you in W Washington and I agree with everything you presented here. The greatest problem I have with the chemical approach is that you are never really sure that you have applied it 100% correctly. If you are a serious gardener you are always trying to analyse why some plants are thriving and others aren't, so by introducing a chemical agent you have complicated your ability to diagnose garden issues for years into the future. The comments here are wonderful and I heartily agree with all those who say the key is diligent weeding regardless of which other approach you use. And try to be philosophical, bindweed is more annoying than lethal, it is easy enough to pull the vines like you say.
Thanks for your thoughts. I've also been impressed at the thoughtfulness of the commenters here. My (selling) season is winding down now, so I'll be catching up on my hand-weeding in the coming two or three weeks.
In Hawaii we have Ipomoea obscura, similar characteristics but considerably smaller. It's horrid but I only have to deal with a small bed. It's a constant battle. They must be pulled weekly before they get a chance to grow. I don't use chemicals at home because it just isn't necessary. If you choose, Roundup will work very well.
It's such a great shame this plant is so invasive in the garden. The flowers are magnificent, and the leaves are attractive as well. But the real horror is their root system.
Totally. A well behaved morning glory (especially the colored ones) would be a welcome addition to a drab corner of the garden.
@@FraserValleyRoseFarm Yes. The Heavenly blue for example, is a dream to have growing nicely on a trellis in the garden. Unfortunately, these plants tend to be very sensitive to cold weather. Preferring mediterranean like temperatures. While here in the UK....Well, it tends to be cold, windy, wet and miserable for most of the early part of the year.
Very well explained thanks
Thank you so much for this. It is a parasite that I’m dealing with in the imported compromised soil that the previous owners had purchased from our city compost site. They didn’t know that people threw it into their compost for the city to pick up...yikes! . I’m about to resort to chemicals for the first time ever .
Whoops..wasn’t done explaining. Cut round hole on lid of container with slit to outside of lid to help get the vine in. Close tightly and leave all winter. Looks a bit funny with containers all over, but does seem to help!
I have a small bindweed plant in a container, it has white, purple/violet and pink flowers. I have a twine-wrapped post in the middle of the pot and I wrap it around that.
I use a sheet mulching technique, but it is more of a road bump. Nature always finds a way, but weeds like Bindweed are tenacious. Occasionally i do use chemical means, by digging down to the runners and "painting" the cut ends. I try not to spray, for all the usual reasons, but I also keep bees and we let chickens roam a few times a day.
thanks! I was wondering about painting. We have chickens next door and don't want to injure them. To know I can paint is a good option.
Bindweed is also my annual battle, here in the UK, along with slugs which I have in the thousands and I cant totally control.
Years ago we had a long laurel hedge (50 meters or so) badly affected by bind weed. I took the time to excavate roots every five meters or so & left them soaking in a small shotglass of roundup (this was when you could get the good stuff in the UK). Within 10 days the bindweed was dead & never came back.
When reconstructing a koi pond, the liner was exposed after 2 years. The liner had multiple fist sized 'lumps' under the 3' deep floor (?) > turns out bind weed just kept searching for more room to spread and created these knots. After 8 years I left the home but my bind weed was living big and waved good by
Excellent video so helpful 👌👏
Good tips for any invasive vine.
It's so strange how the "taking over" of a plant depends so much on where you live. I guess any plant will take over if the conditions are right for it. I'm in south west central PA, and we grow Bindweed on our front porch-on purpose-as a surrogate Morning Glory. It grows quietly here on the edges of the woods around last year's dried reeds, where it stays mostly choked-out by the other weeds. I have to admit that we think of Bindweed as a pleasure here, especially because it has no unpleasant side effects. So try to see the silver lining: consider what a discomfort an invasion of Poison Ivy or Stinging Nettles would be! Our problem weed here is a type of prickly Thistle, which, trust me, is much more of a chore to yank than a soft, flowery vine. That said, good luck with your battle, sir!
Thanks. You're so right! It's one reason why I always take the "invasive species" conversations with a grain or two of salt. What's troublesome even a few hours south of here seems to be quite tame in my garden.
Only way to truly get rid of this and other hazardous, invasive and dangerous weeds, unless your aim is to embark on a lifetime project of pulling them. This along with the horrible Mile-a-minute vine and Giant Hogweed are best candidates for a powerful weedkiller like Roundup which acts on a chemical pathway only found in plants. It only takes a small spray on the leaves to initiate the destruction of the plant since the active ingredient is transported though the entire noxious weed. Well presented video, thanks.
the key i have found to solving the bindweed problem in my orchard is that i walk all over doing all the chores and always have a weed pick with me and as i find it where i am, i take it out with as much of root as i can. my issue is always on the perimeter of the property because bindweed is rampant in the area. it does not take much effort and it is now just automatic... i see and take it out without even thinking about it. i have not seen bindweed as big as yours in a long time... the largest one i yanked this year was about a foot long. when i first started though... yeah... the first year was a lot of work. after that... just get in the habit of spotting them and yanking them. as i have improved the soil, more and more of the roots come out as i have a really loose soil now so that helps. i would not use chemicals as this is not a problem you will solve for good. chances are that bindweed is all over your area so even when you eliminate the plants from your land, wind and animals will bring new plant to you. so if you use chemicals you will do so for ever. if you are willing to do that, you have more severe issues that are far more important than bindweed.
Thabk you for sharing your knowledge!! I believe I have some bindweed growing with my wildflowers, I went nuts n ripped them out... I will not let them kill my flowers 🤓🌱💚
Good luck. I hope you can stay on top of it!
My Granddad used to mix some strong weed killer with old engine oil and paint the leaves of the bindweed. That worked but you have to be careful to avoid the other plants.
Thank you for the video and the comments everyone. I think I'm going to try to gather up the vines and stuff them into a clear plastic bag, bind up the base with a zip or wire tie.and spray Round Up in a small opening I'll make at the top of the bag, "massaging" the weedkiller into the leaves from outside the bag. I'll then tie the hole I've made in the bag. Attempting a sealed "contained" environment since containers filled with RoundUp seems too hazardous to me. I don't know if this will work, but I just got a quote today of 20, 000.00 to remove bindweed from a 20x3 foot garden that I paid thousands dollars earlier this summer to install. New plants and top soil which wasn't covered with mulch straight afterwards and the morning glory moved in and took over! Gardeners in my Vancouver area charge 100.00 an hour for two men, which means its almost 1000.00 a visit! I used to do it all the gardening myself, happily! Now I have to watch other people do it and pay through the nose for "the pleasure" ! Darn these old knees and hips! Wish me a speedy recovery so that I can get back to my young self!
Ouch all the way around (but especially the $1000/day, I have to say!)
Becareful with round up , my friends father got sick from that stuff, it causes cancer. Look this stuff up. God Bless
I have heard that one of the ways to eradicate it is to take the growing tips and put them in a jar filled with dilute herbicide. I intend to try this in my garden this summer.
I just covered my back yard in landscape fabric to fight this invasive bind weed.
Ouch - that sounds like a real battle. I hope it helps!
I did that for 9 months. A lot of it died but you could still see yellow stems of the bindweed. I sprayed it will a herbicide in it's weakened state and got more of it. I dug a lot up after that to weaken it even more. It is back though from the neighbours a year later.
@@edithreardon6042 Yes, I am seeing it will return from my neighbors too, they do not care if they have it or not.
Someone told me to use surfactant on bindweed and then several days later use trimec mixed with surfactant. I never got to the surfactant and trimec step because the surfactant proved quite deadly to the bindweed and weakened it enough that it more or less died out and didn't seem to be a real problem after that. Of course, it is very dry where I live and I don't have the gigantic specimens you seem to have growing all over.
I have this out of control in my veggie garden. I didn't know what it was and have been digging roots up constantly and its amazing how quickly it comes back. I was doing research and it was mentioned it didn't like wet soil. I had a hose connection and it was leaking for quite a while which soaked an area and the rest of the garden was quite dry. The roots were not growing in the wet ground but were growing everywhere else. Next spring I think I will drown it :)
Best luck. We have a fairly moist climate and it doesn't seem too discouraged by it!
I have a wetland restoration project. Convolvulus is a big problem. It will climb the Raupo (Bullrush) and prevent the leaves opening, until the weight of convolvulus on top of the rush bears the whole plant down. I think you could use a lot of water to no effect, trying to drown this beast. I use glyphosate, and surface scratching to break the convolvulus roots without damaging the tree roots, which are deeper.
Some of us have a PON1 (serum paraoxanase) deficiency and cannot metabolize organophosphate well and Roundup is not an option. If you must use it, I would recommend that you get a plastic bowl with a lid, cut a hole in it and then put some Roundup liquid in the bowl. Put the Bindwind vine into the bowl so that it absorbs the Roundup into the root. The energy descends best into the root during the late summer early fall. I used this method with vinegar after spending the summer tearing out the growing vine. The Roundup is more toxic and more effective but if you are not spraying it in your neighbors' air, it may be okay to use it in the summer but remember it will be more effective when the plant energy descends into the roots. BTW, I learned these techniques here on KZhead but don't have the links.
Thanks Don. I didn't know about PON1 deficiency! Thanks also for your tips
I tried putting Roundup in a bowl and soaking the bindweed in it. I hate using Roundup too, and the bindweed is still there. Laughing at me, I am sure!
@@kalayne6713 Yes, my Carolina Snail Seed vine lepped it up like a kitten laps up milk, and then asked for more!!
Thanks for the info
We also have a problem with bindweed. We found out early on that Bindweed loved the raised beds in our vegetable garden. If you dig down on the inside of the boards which form the frame of the raised beds you will find big bundles of the white roots running all along the boards. It reminded me of the bundles of electrical cables you see in industrial installations. We got rid of the raised beds. Now when we dig over the whole area we pick out as much of the roots as possible. In this way we can keep it under control but not eradicate it. We still have a problem with permanently planted areas especially soft fruit like raspberries, Red Currents and so on.
Thanks - the roots really do seem to hug the barriers don't they?
I have seen bindweed pull down very large glasshouses, we fought it in our previous garden for years and years, keep on it, blocking its light even with old newspaper or carpet can help. Newspapers? Now that’s a rarity now! 🤣
I haven't let it pull down a structure (yet), but when it grows over those red cedar trees, it leaves big bald patches from where it's blocked the light. The piles I'm pulling off are massive!
I have been fighting bindweed for years in my yard. I have tried each of these methods and the bindweed continues to find new ways to show up. I no longer use commercial chemicals but do use vinegar with soap and salt. As for the landscape fabric, over time it does break down and the weeds just come through it Right now I am doing a complete overhaul in my front yard, I dug and tried to remove as much of the roots as possible on half of my front yard before doing a rock garden and just a month or so later the bindweed is already popping up between the rocks. For the other half of the front yard I have decided to do no digging but instead I am going to lay down cardboard with a heavy layer of mulch on top and leave it until next spring before I decide to plant anything. This is the first time I am trying this method so time will tell if it helps. I often joke that one of the oldest creatures on Earth is the roach and they survived through ice ages, floods and fires by hiding under the bindweed.