Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Any tips for dealing with bind weed?

napalm

Hah, it does feel like that might be the only option some times…

Tackling it in bite sized pieces rather than epics seshes helps. But this year I think it's tough.

One common suggestion is to put stakes in and for them to grow on to make it easier to identify and pull.

Another option if you have a patch is to put weed killer in a 2l coke bottle and feed loads into it. That way you don't risk your surrounding plants as it's inevitably bound up in them.

A while ago I dug a load out of a patch, like 20cm deep, tons of white roots and all – and it was back with a vengeance two weeks later. Not worth the effort. I now just weed it like anything else.
Last year I had it all growing up a trellis, and I reckon it made it far worse the following year, like I was encouraging it and building up stronger roots.

Yeah - it does seem to have really liked the wet and mild winter I think - loads of hedgerows round here absolutely covered in it.

Might stick some stakes in to train it - had heard that suggested.

Just such a pain when it tangles itself in the roses. There is a clematis in there somewhere too and it just entwined itself in that so much that we ended pulling a load of it out with it

With stuff like that I usually try and find the base then snip it. Once it's dry you can rip it out without causing as much damage.

I’ve been tackling bind weed for 2 years on my garden bank, I’ve hacked out all kinds of thick roots, and it just keeps coming back. I’ve heard from landscapers you need to dab tiny amounts of glyphosate on the end of the leaves (it’s nasty stuff), that kills it systemicly.

I refuse to use chemicals, so I will keep hacking it out.

The bamboo method works well, to get it early, as it’s easier to pull out the white roots when they’re small

I have tried various approaches with bindweed, they all seem to be fairly ineffective. I just do a semi-regular sweep of the garden now and try to pull up any bits that I can see. I'm pretty buggered as I have neighbours on two sides who have a load of bindweed in their garden and either aren't able to deal with it (one neighbour) or apparently don't give a shit about it (the other neighbour) and I'm therefore constantly fighting a battle at the boundaries because the bastard stuff loves to encroach.

Have only had occasional encroachments of bindweed before. Noticed some coming up around the fence this spring, from the side where house has been emptyish for a year. Their back garden is now totally covered in the stuff :(

Might see if the neighbours on the other side are up for us both going over the fences and clearing a load of it

Have same issue here where it's in every garden and scrambling all over the trees, fences etc all around. Roots are everywhere in top soil, and it'll grow from just a tiny piece.

I'm trying to avoid chemicals too so this year i've just weeded it out as it grows, every 3 days, and will try keep on top of it for a few years. If you do go down the glyphosate route, grow up a trellis so it's easier to treat and then put it into a plastic bag when you apply so overspill doesn't affect neighbouring plants. Best treated in late summer/early autumn i think, and mix with a bit of fairy liquid to help penetrate leaves better.

On flip side, the flowers are good for bumblebees and leaves feed visiting convulvus hawkmoth larvae

Out of interest is the planter diy ? What kind of planks are they ?

Is bindweed all that bad to just leave? I've been lucky to never really have had it before. Moved to a new house in December, though, and there is a decent bit of bindweed here. Currently not threatening any plants that are sentimental to me, so I'd planned to just do nothing about it. Will I come to regret that in a few years time?

IMO, you'll come to regret it. It spreads quickly. I'd remove it.

This is one of the plots at my allotment that the owner hasn't weeded this year. All of that stuff covering everything is bindweed, it's a nightmare to get rid of if you let grow.

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It is, pretty crude. Scaff boards that my mate’s builders left behind. Bit of a sand, treat, smash in big screws. Chicken wire cradle, then weed fabric to hold a bit of compost. Not too deep but perfect for salad stuff. I have enough boards to do another, which I’ll probably add another 50% of depth so it can do Cavolo Nero (which doesn’t seem to be taking in v1)

That is nightmare fuel

We’ve got loads coming in from our neighbours garden, as well as dealing with a fuck tonne of it that was there before we moved in too. You basically can’t dig all of it out its roots are so deep, even painting the leaves with glyphosate doesn’t get rid of it.

From experience the moment you blink, it has moved in stolen your beer and now selling your collectibles on marketplace for half their retail.

Really. Bindweed is evil.

Bindweed is just knotweeds little brother

I had bindweed in my borders when I moved to my current house, and managed to remove it without too much effort at all just by pulling it up whenever I saw it, obvs taking as much root as possible. Haven't seen it reappear in several years since.

The real problem with it is how it likes to tangle itself all up in the roots of other plants - if it's all twisted round the base of your favourite rose bush for example, that's a killer.

Eeep. Okay. I've always tried not to use chemicals, so I will try the pulling things out method first of all. Wish me luck!

I had a patch of bindweed growing through a juniper.

I regularly pull out everything I can as near to the ground and dig a bit up.

I guess if it never gets to the leafy stage it can't photosynthetise so eventually runs out of food...... After 5 or so years I think I'm winning.........

by pulling it up whenever I saw it

This is the way.

I've just done 90 minutes, and it's a lot better, but I've also probably only done about a third of the garden!

Do not compost it, in case anyone is daft enough to do that.