Does anyone know anything about gardening?

2nd fig propagation attempt, encouraging root growth after keeping them in the dark at 20 degrees for a couple of weeks. Hopefully they take.

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I'm still waiting on most of mine, maybe not enough sun where I am?

The one with the colour fade is cool, can you cross them with the spikey one?

can't tell from the pic but check this
https://www.thespruce.com/vining-and-bush-tomatoes-1835707

Anyone had much experience with keeping bindweed at bay?

We’ve just moved into a place and pulled out an absolute fuck tonne, which was consuming all the trees, bushes and ground of a roughly 4x8m area at the back of the garden.

We’ve not pulled up many of the roots yet, but will go over the entire area with a fork and get up as much of the root as we can, but I’m certain that isn’t enough.

Lots of talk in no-dig circles about just plopping some cardboard over the top as a mulch, adding compost, and planting what you like. Then going back once a week to pull out any fresh shoots to weaken the root network over time.

Can’t really go for any herbicides, nor do I want to, since it’ll kill everything else in the area in what’s a very mature garden (see image of the not-infested bit, the bindweed is all at the back but I didn’t get a picture before we ripped it out).

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Have heard you can train it to grow up canes, then you can hit it with Glysophate more surgically.

Not a bad shout, would that then affect anything else close by, or just the root do you think?

If you paint it onto the leaves it should be absorbed and just kill off the bindweed I believe. It breaks down in soil.

It breaks down in soil.

That I did not know! Will try this when it rears its pernicious tentacles again

This is worth a read on Glyphosate breakdown:
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2021/04/21/how-to-neutralise-glyphosate-roundup-herbicide-contamination-in-soil/

Doesn't sound fantastic on initial read, with half-life decay of up to 197 days, but it seems there are things you can add to the soil to break it down faster.

In my experience this doesn't actually kill it, new bindweed will continue to grow even after the bit you've got dies back

Removing it by hand, whenever you see it, doesn't seem to properly kill it either but it does slow it down enough that it becomes a completely manageable occasional task

If you try and dig it out it works with a fair bit of effort. Roots are long and white like the fingers of a drowned child.

very macabre but applicable…

properly evil stuff this, never had to deal with it before

Bindweed is also in the same family as ololiuhqui, which was used by
ancient Aztecs as an hallucinogenic drug, and Morning Glory, which is
also reputed to have psychedelic properties. But if you eat lots of
our normal hedge bindweed in the hopes of getting a mind-altering
experience you are more likely to get a trip to the loo than any sort
of psychedelic head trip!

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/07/bindweed-beauty-or-beast.html

Anyone had much experience with keeping bindweed at bay?

Gardeners' question time say that if you just keep pulling it up, eventually it'll weaken and die. How likely it is that you weaken and die first they didn't say

Been at my bindweed and ground elder for about 4 years now and feel I am getting the upper hand :)

I seem to be at the mercy of bindweed, ivy and honeysuckle trying to go full triffid in my garden.

Not to mention my once spotting if potential knotweed. Glyphosate and digging are hard work but seem to be my only options.

keep pulling it up, eventually it'll weaken and die

I have had success with this in raised beds. But if I recall it took me over 6 months to eliminate... (and that's going out every few days to either put in a cane for it or pull some up.

And now we have small plants cropping up in the main bit of the garden. FFS

I love honeysuckle!

Bindweed is annoying as it pulls plants together and rather than a nice display I end up with everything tangled in a bunch... :)

Sorrels, ground elder, couch grass, brambles, bind weed, a super damp corner...I just have to accept the garden will never be a show garden ;)

I did have some success in part of the garden with the bindweed/brambles, but since the neighbours don't tackle theirs it just comes back in. C'est la vie...I do like the Ivy and it is good for the birds.

Anyone “made” a rubble/ gravel garden?
We have a good size area out front after our house renovation and lots of left over stuff ( big stones, rubble, gravel , wood from the roof etc ) and fancy a bit of derek jarman garden vibes out front. South facing so will get loads of sun
Any tips for what to plant/ just let it happen naturally?

We have gravel and a few things we planted in the beds have died back and self seeded in the gravel instead. Verbena, fennel, California poppies, big grasses all grow well. We even have a tomato plant appear this year.

I love honeysuckle but this one appears particularly virulent and keeps taking over.

Please don’t use glyphosate ffs.
I did my time spraying it commercially before I knew the dangers.
That shit should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

It might be a non-native one?

I read some of those can go wild, they are a real problem in some USA states...

Happy pulling I guess ;) My bindweed is happily going up the fence, elsewhere I have to keep at it.

What would you use instead?

I don't use it, and I use pelargonic acid on the driveway (cos no £ to get it relaid and docks don't come out fully when you pull) but it's not -that- effective... rest of the garden is chemical free.