Tips on getting rid of bindweed?

[Elcoto]

I currently have a massive problem with bindweed EVERYWHERE (flowerbeds, shrubs and lawn). At the moment, I’m slowly working my way around pulling it up. I know it will come back, but eventually the roots will starve, won’t they? Is there a better, more effective method?

I just kept pulling up and tried to get every tiny piece of root out! Got there eventually but took an age!

I usually find it dies off over winter (but always comes back in spring, it’s smothering my garden right now too). I avoid using chemicals so haven’t found another method besides pulling it up

Bindweed is one of the more difficult weeds to get rid of in my experience.

I had a patch that I spent months trying to get rid of, every time some appeared I got out the spade and made sure to dig it out in its entirety. After a few months of this I thought I'd got it all and planted out the area, but eventually it came back and i could no longer dig it out without destroying the new plants.

So I broke out the concentrated glysophate and rubbed that into the leaves once it was 6 inches tall. Did that a few times and it's not been back since.

Tl;Dr - dig out what you can, weedkiller what you can't.

I've tried a method I read online: give a shoot of it a stick to grow up [rather than it latching on to one of your plants], spray it with weedkiller like Round Up and cover it with a plastic bag or bottle, so the weedkiller doesn't affect other plants but is concentrated on the bindweed.

I was getting desperate. I think this might work to protect an individual plant but it doesn't really work if you have an infestation.
I've gone back to ripping it out where I see it.

It's so invasive and hard to get rid of!

I do quite like the leaves and love the flower trumpets, but because it strangles everything I have to keep trying to rip it out.

We have it. I got the roots out, looked like noodles 🤢 will have to see how well a job I did in a month when it comes back (or doesnt)

It's taken over all the hedges in our garden, I was pulling it away this week and it just felt never ending, the roots of ours are in our neighbours garden which is massively overgrown as they haven't moved in yet so has been left untouched for about a year, there is meant to be something you can apply to is that works it's way down to the root to kill it, think it's what the poster above said gylsophate. We have a long garden and I can't see us getting rid entirely

Pull up as soon as it appears, it's the only way I found. A bench in my garden was covered within about 2 weeks!
Membrane around where it up if you can.

I'm really struggling with it too. I've resorted to weedkiller this week. I've untwizzled some, crammed the ends into a dog poo bag, sprayed the spray into the bag and pegged it shut. I think I'm just going to have to manage it this summer and then reevaluate over the winter. Alan Titchmarsh reckons you need to dig out all the mature plants and clean the roots, and then remove all the roots from the soil, then replant. Absolutely no chance!

I found digging it up made it worse as I never got all the root, but somehow also managed to also spread it around!
Now I go round weekly and pull of all leaves at ground level, before each plant gets too big. And I never let it flower. Slowly the leaves that come back get smaller and smaller. I hope eventually to kill it off that way. But I am probably deluded.

Thanks everyone. Sigh. Looks like there’s no alternative to pulling it up, really, except maybe weedkiller. I go out and do a patch every day, but there never seems to be any less of it. I’ll carry on pulling up this year, but if it’s this bad again next year, it’s going to be the nuclear weedkiller option.

We've been at it for best part of 30 years now, it comes from next door which has never really been cared for. I was talking to a farmer last week who said that Roundup was the only way but I don't think that's easy to come by now. He also said to give it a stick to grow up to keep it out of your plants and make it easy to treat, I'm going to have a go at that but I sort of fear that I'm going to be digging it up till I drop of my perch

It is a very bad year for it.

We have it in our garden every year, but most years you can just pull up the strands and it's fine for the rest of the summer. Every few years, it goes mad - I think because it has been so wet this year. I remember about 15 years ago we came back from a 2 week holiday and all out shrubs and hedges were literally flattened to the ground by it. It's never been that bad since, but getting close this year.

I spent years in a losing battle with bindweed. It came from my neighbour’s garden, he is elderly and his garden is wild (there’s also a fox den in there). Last year I asked for his permission to clean his garden, filled six garden waste bags with rubbish and other weeds, used Round up on the bindweed twice a few weeks apart, laid cardboard everywhere to smother the roots, and mulched the whole lot with a thick layer of bark chip.

It’s been a game changer. I still get a bit of bindweed, but only in one raised bed and I can keep it under control by just pulling the weeds out once every few weeks. Elderly neighbour has hired a gardener and he has kept going with Round Up this year.

Ive also found that dense planting has dramatically reduced opportunities for bindweed to take hold as there’s very little light or soil space for it to emerge. Things like Persicaria, vinca minor and ferns can make a good ground cover layer.

Vitax SBK Brushwood Killer is a plant hormone, use it like glyphosate (apply to the leaves and cover with a bag) and it kills the whole plant.

I gave in and used roundup. Two applications got rid of it. Had spent years pulling it up before that. Unfortunately it comes through from neighbour under the fence and she doesn’t give a toss so am sure it will reappear at some point.

You'll be pulling it up for ever.

If you can dig the ground up, you'll realise just how much of it is in there compared to what shows above the surface . White spaghetti roots everywhere.

I found the only option was to carefully spray each leaf with a hand sprayer. That mostly gets rid of it for a season.

I love pulling it up. It’s the only bit of gardening I’m any good at. It’s quite easy to keep on top of it if you keep an eye out and catch it early.

Take off, nuke ‘em from space. It’s the only way.

only half joking

Roundup Gel, the stuff that comes in the green container with a blue top that looks like a big stick deodorant. You just rub it on the leaves and don’t have to faff about covering plants in bags etc.

I dug it up and I got rid of a lot of it - masses of roots, really quite shocking how many roots. I will now treat each new shoot individually with Round-up, I fully expect for it to take years to get rid of this stuff.
I've been more successful with ground-elder. But the alkanet is still popping up everywhere!

Have you tried putting a barrier down beneath the fence?

@Hydrangerous not possible due to layout plus I am disabled

I found just digging over the border by hand with an hand fork, and pulling up the roots, very carefully as any tiny piece left will grow, was very satisfying. It does weaken it over time, but you have to keep at it. It's a shame it can't throw like the one I have in my grass, which is very compact and doesn't take over and has little white and pink tinged flowers.

I feel your pain. We don't have bindweed but we do have couch grass, ground elder and cleavers (tons of the stuff this year) and it is a never-ending chore.

Do keep at it though, MIL thought I would never rid her garden of Russian vine, but I won in the end.😂