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| How to Get Rid of Bindweed |
Removing Bindweed:
Bindweed is one of the most troublesome of all of the perennial weeds in the garden and a problem that is made inherently more difficult for the organic gardener due to its resilience and difficulty in being removed without chemical formulas. There are two different strains of bindweed in the UK: Calystegia Sepium with large pure white trumpet flowers, not unlike Morning Glory and the smaller field bindweed known as Convolvulus Arvensis with white and pink smaller flowers instead. Both are extremely difficult to tackle and will require a great deal of hard work. The plant acts by twirling its leaves and stems around a host plant smothering them and choking their flow of water and nutrients and inhibiting growth. The roots are white and easy broken, resulting in a plant that can seemingly regenerate itself, even when dug completely from the earth, by sprouting once more from even the tiniest pieces of root left in the soil.
They are often found in hedges but more recently have been seen in numerous national gardens, where amateur and professional gardeners alike, have struggled to control its spread. One of the key elements of the national infrastructure spreading its development is the availability of green-waste-recycled-composts, available at many household recycling centers (tips) which gardeners unknowingly purchase as mulch, but which actually often contains small amounts of bindweed ready to sprout. Bindweed spreads primarily from sections of its underground root systems, including rhizomes, normal roots and stems. They can be up to 5m deep into the soil (making removal near impossible) and each tiny section of the yellowy white roots can grow shoot growth if separated from the main plant. Established plants can also grow across gardens with immense speed while their root systems can grow, invade and colonize the soil at a rate of 2m per growing season. Literally as quickly as you can dig it up – it is regrowing. Field versions of bindweed do produce seeds but as you will understand, they are not the plant’s main form of reproduction.
Organically, the plant is notoriously difficult to control. This is due in part to the deep root depth that they can establish. By digging the plant out and persistently hoeing its tops when they appear, you can kill and the plant off over a period of a couple of years but this is a laborious and time consuming task. When digging the ground over in the autumn, attempt to remove all that you can in order to fight back against the plant whilst growth is at a minimum. In the spring, follow this up with another round of digging and removing to assist will curtailing the spread of the plant. Unfortunately, this is the only organic form of offence against bindweed and is a tiring and laborious way to deal with the plant. Chemically, however, there are a number of products that will affect the plant considerably, including Glyphosate. This is a non-selective weed killer though and will attack other plants in the vicinity too. It is most effective during flowering when sprayed in the early evening. The same applies to lawns, where regular lawn weed killers can be repeatedly applied to finally kill the plant off. |
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