Seeds can last decades and roots can go dozens of feet deep. While I hate herbicides, there is a time and place for everything.
I learned this from a long time CO gardener and I've found it to be the most effective. What you want to do is shove the tendrils coming up in a plastic sandwich bag, without breaking them. Then apply a heavy amount of herbicide. Then seal it with a rubbber band or short little zip tie.
This allows much more herbicide to be absorbed than a regular spraying which will take out a TON more root growth underground. While at the same time, it helps contain the herbicide and prevent unintentional spreading.
I collect plastic half gallon milk cartons over the year. I cut the bottom off and place the open end of the container over the bindweed (works for Russian thistle too). Then spray through the spout and put the cap on. It prevents the spray from spreading to other plants and the extra heat and humidity in the mini greenhouse help the plant soak up the weed killer. I spray glyphosate one day and come around the next day with 2,4-D. I’ve mostly eradicated both this pests from my yard now except for one spot where a neighbor lets it run wild near the border of our yards.
I don’t have times to look up sources, but research info I’ve gotten from CU include
If you handpuall every 8-9 days during growing season it will weaken and eventually kill the plant. I’ve seen about 90@ success after two years of pulling.
Best way to use herbicides is to pull all season and treat with herbicides in Fall when plant is pulling energy down to roots.
When csu first ground the mites to the Front Range I took their training and tried the mites on several clients gardens. It did not work significantly in any of them. One was a xeric area completely unirrigated. It was an average rainfall year. I recently revisited the at property and could guess from foliage there were still some bites there but the bindweed was robust escially after lasts years rain. I another time was at a CSU workshop and one of the weed people said they just haven’t seen the mite successfully establish in the front range.
I once lived in a house with a fully enclosed sunroom with a fancy flagstone floor. One strand of bindweed had managed to grow on top of the slab 12 feet into the house to come up between in the flagstone floor.
Don’t live next to neighbors who let their bindweed grow freely and seed into your yard through the fence or at border property lines 😅 pretty futile effort if you’ve got that situation, especially when there’s multiple neighbors on either side of you who let it grow wild 🙃
People who let it go are going to keep us breaking our backs just to barely keep it at bay, so it doesn’t destroy gardens, but it’s impossible to win if you’ve got negligent neighbors. It gets windy and those seeds will make their way into your yard, as will the extensive root systems they have. If interest rates and home prices weren’t so high I’d genuinely move lol.
I placed thick cardboard down, buried it a good 6+ inches under the dirt, and bindweed still grew outside from the edges all season and even when diligently pulling, it kept coming up. When we pulled up some of the cardboard in the fall, it was like mounds of spaghetti of bindweed roots. 4ft+ long without breaking single strands.
Weed killer is the only thing that mildly helps. I’m pretty anti herbicides but you have no choice but to go nuclear on bindweed. I’ve also had to embrace some pesticides too bc that’s a whole other issue lol.
But bindweed outcompetes everything we’ve tried to grow, including clover—it grows so much faster than anything so when everything is just sprouting it’s turned into a full plant shading and suffocating my plant seedlings—totally chokes them out.
It should be classified as an ecological enemy if it doesn’t already have that stamp. My dream gov program (besides the basics) is we fuel the EPA with funds so they can go to everyone’s house and fix the deeply imbalanced ecosystems that have arisen. Like Japanese beetles.
Love this knowledge sharing idea OP! I hope someone invents a better solution one day. I’m bookmarking this thread to go back to and see if others share things that’ve worked well.
This is our story, too. Full-sun front yard, bindweed outcompeted all ground cover attempts, we sheet mulched with overlapping cardboard topped with several inches of chip drop woodchips. A couple months later, the bindweed started to reappear. We pulled the spaghetti strands that fall, and constantly throughout the following season when bindweed went every which way through the cardboard to fully take over. By late summer or early fall, we gave up and sprayed with glyphosate on a calm day with no rain in the forecast. It didn’t come back last year, and we disturbed the soil quite a bit planting water-wise plants in august and September. It can apparently live for decades in the soil, so I won’t pretend we’ve won the war, but we are victorious in the current battle.
Dang that deserves a major celebration 🫡 hats off to you! What kind of plants were around the bindweed you had, and what was your strategy applying the herbicide?
Haha, thank you! It is a major feat! We were lucky in that we basically killed the ‘yard’ sheet mulching because bindweed and thistle were in such abundance, so we didn’t have to worry too much when spraying. We have Russian sage that keeps expanding out, and we’ve found a bindweed vine or two mixed in there, but it must have shared a damaged root system, because it was dying. I think we also had some yarrow, lavender, and lamb’s ear at the time near the sage, but they’re all pretty hardy and survived spraying nearby. We were just careful to keep the applicator low in the established plant area, and the bulk of the bindweed was in the other 3/4 of the ‘yard’ anyway.
Do you think there's any downside to treating bind weed now with glyphosphate using the Ziploc bag type method? I have a bunch of my yard but it hasn't flowered yet and I wanted to get ahead of it but I don't know if I should pull it or go straight to weed killer, I have mostly dirt in my yard so I'm a fine using weed killer in this instance but just don't know if it would be an effective early?
I honestly wouldn’t bother with a ziploc bag method if your yard is just dirt and bindweed. I’d just put on an n95 mask and spray the whole plants on a windless day. Don’t bother pulling it either; it just slightly delays the inevitable. I’ve read spring before it seeds and fall when it’s taking energy down into the roots are both good times to spray. If you spray now/soon and don’t have immediate planting aspirations, you can always spray again in the fall if it comes back.
After spraying or (repeatedly pulling for months), I replace the bindweed with dense native plants and make sure to include natives that have similar growth strategies, like Colorado four o'clock or prairie winecups. Leaves less of an ecological niche for the bindweed.
Source: Denver ecological landscaper.
Do you know if it's too late to plant four oclock and winecups? I just closed on a house with three large raised beds in the back which are being taken over by bindweed _and_ creeping bellflower, trying to come up with a control strategy.
Do not give up. Declare war. Glyco if needed, and do not let the foliage (leaves) grow. If the leaves keep popping up, paint them with glyco. If you just try to pinch them, they will likely come back with more vigor. In Denver we fight wars with bindweed and also Tree of heaven, often chemicals can help.
Start sowing clover seed right now! Once you start seeing growth, sow another succession. If you keep at watering it you should be MOSTLY bindweed free in the areas it takes off in. Get a good variety of clover types too.
Wow, you’ve seen clover outcompete bindweed successfully?
Edit: I saw you have from your other comment on another post. 😲How large was the bindweed area?
When we moved in our yard was basically weeds, some leftover grass and bare earth. We're on a .25 acre and basically all fence perimeters were bindweed. A hilly eroded area was being held together with bindweed and exposed maple roots. It would just be pure mud in the spring.
I've noticed in the areas where I've been able to get clover established, including inside of my lawn, the bindweed never gets the chance to get going. Dandelions are something I haven't been able to figure out though. The thistle variety is terrible fuck those weeds in particular.
This sounds very similar to my situation today. Bought this house in Feb. Not as big a backyard as yours, but it’s basically a sloped dirt patch, being held together with a small amount of Bermuda grass and weeds started to sprout in March. I don’t think I have bindweed (yet?) because I’m just starting to identify exactly what’s back there, but the one that I’m becoming an expert on is Canada Thistle. (I have seen some white flowers behind my fence.) Extensive underground root system, up to 20 feet deep, dozens of feet across in horizontal rhizomes, seeds can live 20years underground etc. Pure clay ish mud when it rains. I can see it in the neighbors yards on both sides, and behind my fence running along the Creek bed. The county weed specialist confirmed the picture I sent and recommended 2-4,d or roundup. Right now I’m on a daily pulling adventure. When I’m lucky, I’ll find a horizontal and vertical root I can pull until it breaks off. Sometimes I feel like I’m a very bad archaeologist, I get digging and somehow accidentally cut it off and can’t find the rest. I would be terrible saving precious artifacts. I figure this is me “touching grass” while I slowly learn to garden and if I still have issues by fall, I’ll use the 2-4,d I bought. Right now I’m still enjoying the challenge. It’s like therapy after work (online from home) I go outside and hunt Canada Thistle. Clear case of a good vs evil type of mission.
* The bindweed will be there long after you are gone.
* There is one giant bindweed plant growing from under the City County building, that sends its shoots throughout the metro area.
* You can discourage it, but you can't get rid of it. The best you can hope for is to encourage it to choose less favorite parts of your garden or, even better, your neighbors garden.
* There are mites?!?! Tell me more.
personal experience: it doesn't do well in the shade. So, while you might have to pull it off your perennials for the first couple of years, as the bush grows and throws more shade, the bindweed will become less of a problem.
Weird find: apparently, the root of Peruvian Black Mint (which is a member of the marigold family) is known to kill field bindweed. I'm excited to try it! https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/huacatay#full-description-anchor
It's a mint. I'm guessing if you sow seeds for it to fight the bindweed, you may defeat the bindweed but you'll have a yard full of mint. A step up, in my opinion, but still invasive. Just be forewarned.
Did you end up trying peruvian black mint? I just closed on a house with three large raised beds that are being taken over by bindweed and creeping bellflower, trying to come up with a strategy.
I've been having trouble getting the seed I purchased to germinate. So far I have 1 plant out of about 50 seeds I've sown. It's currently only a couple inches high, and looks suspiciously like a regular marigold. Going to keep trying!
Thank you! I’d heard about the shade, that’s part of why I think it’s not such a problem plant in the UK. But whoa! on the Peruvian Black Mint!
Please report back later in the season if you remember us!
Bindweed has trouble establishing where other plants have already taken hold. That's why you don't see it on hikes in the wilderness. So planting densely can be a good strategy for taking care of bindweed seedlings.
But established bindweed WILL outgrow and choke out plants you put into a bindweed-infested area. This is because the root can weigh 2-300 pounds, which is a lot of energy it can use to keep throwing off new growth, and shoot past even large establishing shrubs.
I really don't like pesticides for a multitude of reasons (I suspect park pesticides killed my dog), but bindweed is the plant that makes me consider hyper-targeted uses of it. I've had success in beating back an established infestation, but it's taken years of consistent pulling in the growing season, and systemically planting natives to shade out new growth. The idea is to starve the root of energy by requiring it to send new growth out of the root, without allowing the new leaves to photosynthesize much. It works, but is probably too laborious for most people.
Yes to planting densely and planting natives! This has been my strategy - and getting cardboard and mulch down while I got the plants establish helped slow the bindweed growth in the beginning. Now weeding is a breeze and everything else is thriving!
Thanks! A rare victory story! I don’t think it’s too labor intensive. I am lucky to have a shared house with 4 people. Even though most of us are disabled in some way, we can usually manage something like pulling weeds.
How many years of constant effort did it take?
ETA: I don’t think I’ve heard of an individual beating an infestation before. Please accept this small trophy! 🏆
I had this same problem - bindweed all over my full sun front yard. I started with cardboard and mulch, and lots and lots of planting. I mean…every patch of dirt that isn’t lawn is now planted with some kind of perennial, and prolific re-seeding annuals. I actually have a no-bare-dirt policy on my property (except for annual veggie beds - I push the mulch aside so I can access the soil every season). The bindweed is so suppressed now that I don’t mind weeding at all anymore - it’s no longer hard labor.
I really think, with bindweed…it’s best to fight plants with plants. And don’t worry about pulling them up and breaking the stem (creating a “new” plant and never getting down to the root) - you’re giving the plants next to the bindweed a chance to thrive, and take over.
My neighbors used glyphosate (in the safest way possible, “leaf- painting”, which I appreciate)…and they still have a lot of bindweed.
The mites have made a huge difference in my backyard. Last year, my bindweed did not flower at all, despite not weeding it and despite significant rain in the early part of the season. They are worth the wait.
After spraying or (repeatedly pulling for months), I replace the bindweed with dense native plants and make sure to include natives that have similar growth strategies, like Colorado four o'clock or prairie winecups. Leaves less of an ecological niche for the bindweed.
Source: Denver ecological landscaper.
We bought a house in 2021 and spent our first summer looking out the front window going “Gosh, idnk what those white flowers are but they’re awfully pretty!” Then one day I looked the plant up on Google and it’s been a living nightmare ever since. We signed up for the mites in 2022 and received them last summer. Followed the directions on the included pamphlet and… nothing happened. Our bindweed returned this spring, as it does, but as we’ve been pulling it we’ve noticed it doesn’t look so good. The leaves are turning brown and yellow and it hasn’t flowered at all. We go on walks in the neighborhood and see everyone else’s bindweed flowering, but there hasn’t been a single flower in our front yard yet this year. We’re assuming at this point that the mites are… maybe doing their job? So, if you order mites give them time to start working and don’t give up hope!
Also after 3 years of failed attempts to manage the bindweed in the roughly 10x20 ft strip of dirt next to our driveway we gave up and sprayed it all with glyphosate. My husband was very against this plan but we were left with no other options. It was 100% bindweed over there and it's all super duper dead now!
I've accepted it as something that will always exist in my garden and yard space. I recognize it almost immediately and pull it often as part of my garden chores.
I use lots and lots of mulch in my garden so it makes the soil way less compacted and easy to pull it from the ground without too much fuss.
Elevate your garden beds and weed it when you are doing your watering or inspecting your plants. If you are tending to your garden space regularly its easy to spot and manage. Good luck!
I’ve been digging it up, to about a foot deep, diligently disposing of all the little branches that break off in the process. Then I plant my shrubs or whatnot and deadnettle. It really doesn’t like deadnettle. The first few years I go through and clean out any bindweed that pops up and then it’s gone from the area. I live in the high desert of eastern Oregon so very similar to Colorado.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is brushing on stump killer (Ferti-lome brush and stump killer). I know some people swear by it, but I'm still too nervous to try it.
We'll see how I'm feeling by autumn though.
The most effective control is double-strength glyphosate applied when buds are forming in the fall. I got this from a PhD weed scientist. In lawns, 2,4-D can also be used, but it's not quite as good. Simple glyphosate is better than most fancy Roundup formulations because they tend to have secondary chemicals for fast action. You don't want fast action, you want the plant to carry the glyphosate to the roots.
Is glyphosate really *that* bad?
- carcinogenic
- damaging to bees
Yeah- it *sounds* bad.
But the Monsanto, EPA and most American ag lobbying associations say it is safe enough and we *need it.*
For best control of bindweed spraying in the fall when the plant is trying to store nutrients and will bring the herbicide deeper into the root system giving you better control
If you use round up it is not soil active and breaks down into nitrogen and carbon. Don't use the ones marked extended control because it is soil active. FYI The EPA found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen. https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide.../glyphosate Glyphosate is not carcinogenic, EU report confirms. https://cen.acs.org/.../Glyphosate-carcinogenic-EU.../99/i24
Hello fellow warriors, Nebraska gardener here. This is my first year battling with Bindweed, thankful I found this post. I bought a new home last year and started my new vegetable garden like I always do with normally great success. Cardboard, and then a 6-8in layer of straw mulch to smother everything and then I usually let most “weeds” grow until they are about to seed out to help build soil. Well well well, this spring I found a new plant….excited to find out what this new possible soil builder or free salad green was, I came across the biggest enemy of my life. BINDWEED. Been pulling every 3 days, even tried some glyphosate/2-4D in areas that won’t have vegetables this year, spray smoked some of it, others seem to have benefited from the chemical attack. Hoping to keep on top of it the rest of summer, but sucks not being able to plant cover crops as one cover crop plot I have with 12 way mix is full of bindweed but it really doesn’t take it over just hangs on the plants but I do not want it to get a strong root system. Reading some other comments here I think I will just pull all summer and then come fall after everything is harvested I will hit the survivors with herbicide before a nasty Nebraska winter to hopefully take em out. One observation I’ve had is that it’s not growing around the yard, along my backyard fence, but anywhere there is good soil cover to keep moisture it grows like crazy like under the kids plastic playhouse in the yard, and obviously the heavily mulched veg garden. Does bind weed need a long moist period for germination? Thanks for your work OP! I will keep coming back with any updates so we can all better attack our enemy
Thanks for contributing info! Bindweed does not seem to need much moisture, though it grows faster when present. In Colorado, where I am, it’s a high desert climate and usually very dry. Bindweed’s all over. Last year we had a lot of rain and everything grew like crazy, including the bindweed. We also have harsh winters, and that doesn’t help either. 😞
Seeds can last decades and roots can go dozens of feet deep. While I hate herbicides, there is a time and place for everything. I learned this from a long time CO gardener and I've found it to be the most effective. What you want to do is shove the tendrils coming up in a plastic sandwich bag, without breaking them. Then apply a heavy amount of herbicide. Then seal it with a rubbber band or short little zip tie. This allows much more herbicide to be absorbed than a regular spraying which will take out a TON more root growth underground. While at the same time, it helps contain the herbicide and prevent unintentional spreading.
Ooh, good insight about the amount of weed killer! I'm adding that to my doc...
I collect plastic half gallon milk cartons over the year. I cut the bottom off and place the open end of the container over the bindweed (works for Russian thistle too). Then spray through the spout and put the cap on. It prevents the spray from spreading to other plants and the extra heat and humidity in the mini greenhouse help the plant soak up the weed killer. I spray glyphosate one day and come around the next day with 2,4-D. I’ve mostly eradicated both this pests from my yard now except for one spot where a neighbor lets it run wild near the border of our yards.
How long do you let it sit over it? A day or two?
Just till the plant wilts, which is sometimes a few hours and sometimes a day or two.
I don’t have times to look up sources, but research info I’ve gotten from CU include If you handpuall every 8-9 days during growing season it will weaken and eventually kill the plant. I’ve seen about 90@ success after two years of pulling. Best way to use herbicides is to pull all season and treat with herbicides in Fall when plant is pulling energy down to roots. When csu first ground the mites to the Front Range I took their training and tried the mites on several clients gardens. It did not work significantly in any of them. One was a xeric area completely unirrigated. It was an average rainfall year. I recently revisited the at property and could guess from foliage there were still some bites there but the bindweed was robust escially after lasts years rain. I another time was at a CSU workshop and one of the weed people said they just haven’t seen the mite successfully establish in the front range. I once lived in a house with a fully enclosed sunroom with a fancy flagstone floor. One strand of bindweed had managed to grow on top of the slab 12 feet into the house to come up between in the flagstone floor.
Few things will survive a nuclear war. 1. Bindweed 2. Cockroaches 3. Peeps
I was thinking that same thing just a couple days ago. The entire world will be covered in Bindweed in a year.
Don’t live next to neighbors who let their bindweed grow freely and seed into your yard through the fence or at border property lines 😅 pretty futile effort if you’ve got that situation, especially when there’s multiple neighbors on either side of you who let it grow wild 🙃 People who let it go are going to keep us breaking our backs just to barely keep it at bay, so it doesn’t destroy gardens, but it’s impossible to win if you’ve got negligent neighbors. It gets windy and those seeds will make their way into your yard, as will the extensive root systems they have. If interest rates and home prices weren’t so high I’d genuinely move lol. I placed thick cardboard down, buried it a good 6+ inches under the dirt, and bindweed still grew outside from the edges all season and even when diligently pulling, it kept coming up. When we pulled up some of the cardboard in the fall, it was like mounds of spaghetti of bindweed roots. 4ft+ long without breaking single strands. Weed killer is the only thing that mildly helps. I’m pretty anti herbicides but you have no choice but to go nuclear on bindweed. I’ve also had to embrace some pesticides too bc that’s a whole other issue lol. But bindweed outcompetes everything we’ve tried to grow, including clover—it grows so much faster than anything so when everything is just sprouting it’s turned into a full plant shading and suffocating my plant seedlings—totally chokes them out. It should be classified as an ecological enemy if it doesn’t already have that stamp. My dream gov program (besides the basics) is we fuel the EPA with funds so they can go to everyone’s house and fix the deeply imbalanced ecosystems that have arisen. Like Japanese beetles. Love this knowledge sharing idea OP! I hope someone invents a better solution one day. I’m bookmarking this thread to go back to and see if others share things that’ve worked well.
This is our story, too. Full-sun front yard, bindweed outcompeted all ground cover attempts, we sheet mulched with overlapping cardboard topped with several inches of chip drop woodchips. A couple months later, the bindweed started to reappear. We pulled the spaghetti strands that fall, and constantly throughout the following season when bindweed went every which way through the cardboard to fully take over. By late summer or early fall, we gave up and sprayed with glyphosate on a calm day with no rain in the forecast. It didn’t come back last year, and we disturbed the soil quite a bit planting water-wise plants in august and September. It can apparently live for decades in the soil, so I won’t pretend we’ve won the war, but we are victorious in the current battle.
Dang that deserves a major celebration 🫡 hats off to you! What kind of plants were around the bindweed you had, and what was your strategy applying the herbicide?
Haha, thank you! It is a major feat! We were lucky in that we basically killed the ‘yard’ sheet mulching because bindweed and thistle were in such abundance, so we didn’t have to worry too much when spraying. We have Russian sage that keeps expanding out, and we’ve found a bindweed vine or two mixed in there, but it must have shared a damaged root system, because it was dying. I think we also had some yarrow, lavender, and lamb’s ear at the time near the sage, but they’re all pretty hardy and survived spraying nearby. We were just careful to keep the applicator low in the established plant area, and the bulk of the bindweed was in the other 3/4 of the ‘yard’ anyway.
Do you think there's any downside to treating bind weed now with glyphosphate using the Ziploc bag type method? I have a bunch of my yard but it hasn't flowered yet and I wanted to get ahead of it but I don't know if I should pull it or go straight to weed killer, I have mostly dirt in my yard so I'm a fine using weed killer in this instance but just don't know if it would be an effective early?
I honestly wouldn’t bother with a ziploc bag method if your yard is just dirt and bindweed. I’d just put on an n95 mask and spray the whole plants on a windless day. Don’t bother pulling it either; it just slightly delays the inevitable. I’ve read spring before it seeds and fall when it’s taking energy down into the roots are both good times to spray. If you spray now/soon and don’t have immediate planting aspirations, you can always spray again in the fall if it comes back.
tyvm!
After spraying or (repeatedly pulling for months), I replace the bindweed with dense native plants and make sure to include natives that have similar growth strategies, like Colorado four o'clock or prairie winecups. Leaves less of an ecological niche for the bindweed. Source: Denver ecological landscaper.
Do you know if it's too late to plant four oclock and winecups? I just closed on a house with three large raised beds in the back which are being taken over by bindweed _and_ creeping bellflower, trying to come up with a control strategy.
Do not give up. Declare war. Glyco if needed, and do not let the foliage (leaves) grow. If the leaves keep popping up, paint them with glyco. If you just try to pinch them, they will likely come back with more vigor. In Denver we fight wars with bindweed and also Tree of heaven, often chemicals can help.
I hate both plants. There is a neighbor down the street from me whose yard is basically nothing but bindweed and tree of heaven. So sad.
Start sowing clover seed right now! Once you start seeing growth, sow another succession. If you keep at watering it you should be MOSTLY bindweed free in the areas it takes off in. Get a good variety of clover types too.
Wow, you’ve seen clover outcompete bindweed successfully? Edit: I saw you have from your other comment on another post. 😲How large was the bindweed area?
When we moved in our yard was basically weeds, some leftover grass and bare earth. We're on a .25 acre and basically all fence perimeters were bindweed. A hilly eroded area was being held together with bindweed and exposed maple roots. It would just be pure mud in the spring. I've noticed in the areas where I've been able to get clover established, including inside of my lawn, the bindweed never gets the chance to get going. Dandelions are something I haven't been able to figure out though. The thistle variety is terrible fuck those weeds in particular.
This sounds very similar to my situation today. Bought this house in Feb. Not as big a backyard as yours, but it’s basically a sloped dirt patch, being held together with a small amount of Bermuda grass and weeds started to sprout in March. I don’t think I have bindweed (yet?) because I’m just starting to identify exactly what’s back there, but the one that I’m becoming an expert on is Canada Thistle. (I have seen some white flowers behind my fence.) Extensive underground root system, up to 20 feet deep, dozens of feet across in horizontal rhizomes, seeds can live 20years underground etc. Pure clay ish mud when it rains. I can see it in the neighbors yards on both sides, and behind my fence running along the Creek bed. The county weed specialist confirmed the picture I sent and recommended 2-4,d or roundup. Right now I’m on a daily pulling adventure. When I’m lucky, I’ll find a horizontal and vertical root I can pull until it breaks off. Sometimes I feel like I’m a very bad archaeologist, I get digging and somehow accidentally cut it off and can’t find the rest. I would be terrible saving precious artifacts. I figure this is me “touching grass” while I slowly learn to garden and if I still have issues by fall, I’ll use the 2-4,d I bought. Right now I’m still enjoying the challenge. It’s like therapy after work (online from home) I go outside and hunt Canada Thistle. Clear case of a good vs evil type of mission.
I actually have a bunch of white clover seed on hand! Do you know how important it is to mix types?
* The bindweed will be there long after you are gone. * There is one giant bindweed plant growing from under the City County building, that sends its shoots throughout the metro area. * You can discourage it, but you can't get rid of it. The best you can hope for is to encourage it to choose less favorite parts of your garden or, even better, your neighbors garden. * There are mites?!?! Tell me more.
[https://ag.colorado.gov/conservation/biocontrol/field-bindweed](https://ag.colorado.gov/conservation/biocontrol/field-bindweed)
personal experience: it doesn't do well in the shade. So, while you might have to pull it off your perennials for the first couple of years, as the bush grows and throws more shade, the bindweed will become less of a problem. Weird find: apparently, the root of Peruvian Black Mint (which is a member of the marigold family) is known to kill field bindweed. I'm excited to try it! https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/huacatay#full-description-anchor
It's a mint. I'm guessing if you sow seeds for it to fight the bindweed, you may defeat the bindweed but you'll have a yard full of mint. A step up, in my opinion, but still invasive. Just be forewarned.
It isn't a true mint. It's from the marigold family, genus Tagetes
Cool, go for it then I guess.
Did you end up trying peruvian black mint? I just closed on a house with three large raised beds that are being taken over by bindweed and creeping bellflower, trying to come up with a strategy.
I've been having trouble getting the seed I purchased to germinate. So far I have 1 plant out of about 50 seeds I've sown. It's currently only a couple inches high, and looks suspiciously like a regular marigold. Going to keep trying!
Where did you buy your seeds?
That link I have in my original comment: Westcoast Seeds (I'm Canadian). I suspect I just didn't get enough heat on them at the right time.
I’m planning to use a grow light to see if that helps.
Thank you! I’d heard about the shade, that’s part of why I think it’s not such a problem plant in the UK. But whoa! on the Peruvian Black Mint! Please report back later in the season if you remember us!
Bindweed has trouble establishing where other plants have already taken hold. That's why you don't see it on hikes in the wilderness. So planting densely can be a good strategy for taking care of bindweed seedlings. But established bindweed WILL outgrow and choke out plants you put into a bindweed-infested area. This is because the root can weigh 2-300 pounds, which is a lot of energy it can use to keep throwing off new growth, and shoot past even large establishing shrubs. I really don't like pesticides for a multitude of reasons (I suspect park pesticides killed my dog), but bindweed is the plant that makes me consider hyper-targeted uses of it. I've had success in beating back an established infestation, but it's taken years of consistent pulling in the growing season, and systemically planting natives to shade out new growth. The idea is to starve the root of energy by requiring it to send new growth out of the root, without allowing the new leaves to photosynthesize much. It works, but is probably too laborious for most people.
Yes to planting densely and planting natives! This has been my strategy - and getting cardboard and mulch down while I got the plants establish helped slow the bindweed growth in the beginning. Now weeding is a breeze and everything else is thriving!
Thanks! A rare victory story! I don’t think it’s too labor intensive. I am lucky to have a shared house with 4 people. Even though most of us are disabled in some way, we can usually manage something like pulling weeds. How many years of constant effort did it take? ETA: I don’t think I’ve heard of an individual beating an infestation before. Please accept this small trophy! 🏆
I had this same problem - bindweed all over my full sun front yard. I started with cardboard and mulch, and lots and lots of planting. I mean…every patch of dirt that isn’t lawn is now planted with some kind of perennial, and prolific re-seeding annuals. I actually have a no-bare-dirt policy on my property (except for annual veggie beds - I push the mulch aside so I can access the soil every season). The bindweed is so suppressed now that I don’t mind weeding at all anymore - it’s no longer hard labor. I really think, with bindweed…it’s best to fight plants with plants. And don’t worry about pulling them up and breaking the stem (creating a “new” plant and never getting down to the root) - you’re giving the plants next to the bindweed a chance to thrive, and take over. My neighbors used glyphosate (in the safest way possible, “leaf- painting”, which I appreciate)…and they still have a lot of bindweed.
Before I pull them, I cut the plants below the soil level.
Yeah! A hori-hori knife is super useful for that!
The mites have made a huge difference in my backyard. Last year, my bindweed did not flower at all, despite not weeding it and despite significant rain in the early part of the season. They are worth the wait.
After spraying or (repeatedly pulling for months), I replace the bindweed with dense native plants and make sure to include natives that have similar growth strategies, like Colorado four o'clock or prairie winecups. Leaves less of an ecological niche for the bindweed. Source: Denver ecological landscaper.
We bought a house in 2021 and spent our first summer looking out the front window going “Gosh, idnk what those white flowers are but they’re awfully pretty!” Then one day I looked the plant up on Google and it’s been a living nightmare ever since. We signed up for the mites in 2022 and received them last summer. Followed the directions on the included pamphlet and… nothing happened. Our bindweed returned this spring, as it does, but as we’ve been pulling it we’ve noticed it doesn’t look so good. The leaves are turning brown and yellow and it hasn’t flowered at all. We go on walks in the neighborhood and see everyone else’s bindweed flowering, but there hasn’t been a single flower in our front yard yet this year. We’re assuming at this point that the mites are… maybe doing their job? So, if you order mites give them time to start working and don’t give up hope! Also after 3 years of failed attempts to manage the bindweed in the roughly 10x20 ft strip of dirt next to our driveway we gave up and sprayed it all with glyphosate. My husband was very against this plan but we were left with no other options. It was 100% bindweed over there and it's all super duper dead now!
I've accepted it as something that will always exist in my garden and yard space. I recognize it almost immediately and pull it often as part of my garden chores. I use lots and lots of mulch in my garden so it makes the soil way less compacted and easy to pull it from the ground without too much fuss. Elevate your garden beds and weed it when you are doing your watering or inspecting your plants. If you are tending to your garden space regularly its easy to spot and manage. Good luck!
Mulch, mulch, mulch! Me love mulch! (Said like cookie monster)
I’ve been digging it up, to about a foot deep, diligently disposing of all the little branches that break off in the process. Then I plant my shrubs or whatnot and deadnettle. It really doesn’t like deadnettle. The first few years I go through and clean out any bindweed that pops up and then it’s gone from the area. I live in the high desert of eastern Oregon so very similar to Colorado.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is brushing on stump killer (Ferti-lome brush and stump killer). I know some people swear by it, but I'm still too nervous to try it. We'll see how I'm feeling by autumn though.
The most effective control is double-strength glyphosate applied when buds are forming in the fall. I got this from a PhD weed scientist. In lawns, 2,4-D can also be used, but it's not quite as good. Simple glyphosate is better than most fancy Roundup formulations because they tend to have secondary chemicals for fast action. You don't want fast action, you want the plant to carry the glyphosate to the roots.
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Is glyphosate really *that* bad? - carcinogenic - damaging to bees Yeah- it *sounds* bad. But the Monsanto, EPA and most American ag lobbying associations say it is safe enough and we *need it.*
For best control of bindweed spraying in the fall when the plant is trying to store nutrients and will bring the herbicide deeper into the root system giving you better control
Will the sprayed area be safe for vegetables next spring? Sorry, I don't know much about herbicides.
If you use round up it is not soil active and breaks down into nitrogen and carbon. Don't use the ones marked extended control because it is soil active. FYI The EPA found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen. https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide.../glyphosate Glyphosate is not carcinogenic, EU report confirms. https://cen.acs.org/.../Glyphosate-carcinogenic-EU.../99/i24
Hello fellow warriors, Nebraska gardener here. This is my first year battling with Bindweed, thankful I found this post. I bought a new home last year and started my new vegetable garden like I always do with normally great success. Cardboard, and then a 6-8in layer of straw mulch to smother everything and then I usually let most “weeds” grow until they are about to seed out to help build soil. Well well well, this spring I found a new plant….excited to find out what this new possible soil builder or free salad green was, I came across the biggest enemy of my life. BINDWEED. Been pulling every 3 days, even tried some glyphosate/2-4D in areas that won’t have vegetables this year, spray smoked some of it, others seem to have benefited from the chemical attack. Hoping to keep on top of it the rest of summer, but sucks not being able to plant cover crops as one cover crop plot I have with 12 way mix is full of bindweed but it really doesn’t take it over just hangs on the plants but I do not want it to get a strong root system. Reading some other comments here I think I will just pull all summer and then come fall after everything is harvested I will hit the survivors with herbicide before a nasty Nebraska winter to hopefully take em out. One observation I’ve had is that it’s not growing around the yard, along my backyard fence, but anywhere there is good soil cover to keep moisture it grows like crazy like under the kids plastic playhouse in the yard, and obviously the heavily mulched veg garden. Does bind weed need a long moist period for germination? Thanks for your work OP! I will keep coming back with any updates so we can all better attack our enemy
Thanks for contributing info! Bindweed does not seem to need much moisture, though it grows faster when present. In Colorado, where I am, it’s a high desert climate and usually very dry. Bindweed’s all over. Last year we had a lot of rain and everything grew like crazy, including the bindweed. We also have harsh winters, and that doesn’t help either. 😞
I just made a xeric yard with xeric shrubs, grasses, perennial flowers. Covered the rest with rocks.