Does anyone know how i can get rid of bindweed please?

Initially the best course of action is to carefully, and persistently, dig and hoe out all of the bindweed from your garden. Over the course of a few years, with almost weekly removal of the plant, the bindweed can be completely controlled, but new growths will eventually return.

The fastest period of growth for this weed is in the early spring months. This is the time to be extra-vigilant and dig out ALL of the new shoots as they appear. In this way, you can hope for a less troublesome summer, when your own plants flourish. The aim is to weaken the plant as much as possible - but you really do need to keep your eyes peeled for the slightest sign of the bindweed returning.

One thing to watch out for when manually removing the bindweed, is that it has extremely brittle stems, and this seems to be a "design feature" of this weed. If you are not careful, you can break the plant low down at the ground, leaving the root structure in place, and a new plant will quickly come back in its place. The only sure way to remove the plant this way, is to physically dig out the root structures, following them wherever they lead to.

If you are really suffering with a bindweed infestation, you should probably consider a chemical approach to removing the weed effectively. The use of a non selective weed killer, such as glyphosate, can be carefully applied to the broad leaves of the bindweed, being careful not to treat your wanted plants and the surrounding area. This weed killer is absorbed into the leaf and then is carried to the rest of the plant. This action is essential to kill the underground portions of the bindweed plant.

When spraying the plant, your aim should be to cover as much of the leaf surface as possible, and along the whole length of the weed, this way the weed killer is absorbed more quickly and in larger quantities into the plant.

Bindweed is a really nasty weed - good luck in eliminating it.

> Over the course of a few years, with almost weekly removal of the plant, the bindweed can be completely controlled, but new growths will eventually return

This made me shudder, YEARS?? blimey oriley. Its awful it has gone from the ack garden around to the front it is growing up my walls and i found some poking through my window the other day!

I dont have other plants to speak of as im not much of a gardener which is possilbly why it has gotten soooo bad so i have no problem with zapping it with chemicals. The back garden is much worse and i fence it off in winter to stop it getting boggy with the dogs so i may use chemicals on that. And try and remove as much as possible in the front by digging.

What a nightmare the stuff is, which is a shame as its flower is quite pretty.

Thankyou for your information, looks like i will be busy for the next few weekends.

A tip that I read was to put canes in the garden and encourage the bindweed to climb up them. The foliage should then be more concentrated to a specific area and lifted above other plants. Systemic weedkiller applied to these clusters of shoots will carry the weedkiller back to the roots and hopefully kill the parent plant. But it is a long process.
My problems are ground elder and couch grass. 2 pigs in a fenced off area last year did a splendid job of clearing that.
Apparently you can eat ground elder, but I would have to live on the stuff to make any impression on it

I had it out with the bindweed in my garden this summer, I seem to have won, for now, but I expect to have another few rounds next year to see the thing gone for good.
I did as Sassinak suggested, and left some tall canes for the wily weed to grow up, I then used one of these fast acting 24hr weedkillers, it took a few applications for it to work, but it has eventually knocked it into submission for now.
I had tried to dig it up, but getting every tiny little scrap of weed up proved impossible, just the totiest wee bit will re-generate itself, you have to admire it's survival skills !.

I remember me and y daughter starting to put a veg plot in her new garden. It was slow going as were removing every bit of couch and ground elder root as we dug.
We went out somewhere for the afternoon and when we got back her husband beamed at us and said he was much faster than us and had finished all the digging because he had used the rotovator - argggh !! He seriously couldn't see why we weren't impressed with his efforts

Isn't bindweed a real pain?  My garden has it popping up all over, too, and coming under the boundary walls and fences.  This year I missed tackling it early and ended up pushing long lengths of the horrid stuff into supermarket bags, without pulling it up, and spraying the strongest root-attacking weedkiller I could get into the bags all over the weed, then tying the handles together and leaving it to die.  The garden looked a bit odd with bags dotted about, but the weed died and my dog didn't get chemical on him.

It's just sod's law that the snails that munch my runner beans don't touch the blinking bindweed.  Grrrr.

Just be thankful you don't have Horsetail, even weedkiller doesn't get rid of that.

I had it coming from my neighbours gardens.  Her son looked after her and was happy for me treat the bindweed, the lazy sod.  I tried pulling it it as it came but could grow over night, it did help but think it was an established plant.  I put weed killer on a few of the stems and leaves.  i also saw a trick to put some weedkiller in a bottle and cut the stem then put it in for it to drink it.

In the end I went round neighbours and poured a 5gl bottle over the sight which got the main of it, not noticed much this year.

Don't bother weedkilling now as the the plant isn't active or wanting a drink wait until spring.  Or you could find the start of it and dig it out but you have to go deepish and make sure none is broken as someone else said.  Have you tried putting a cover over to prevent it having daylight, placist, tarpauline ect, this kills the young shoots, if you have no other plants it will be ok.

Spray Spray Spray!!!!!!
As Reikangel said, not now as it will have stopped growing but as soon as you see the new shoots in the summer Spray with Glysophate!!!
If you dig it up you will NEVER get it all, as even a mm of the root will grow another plant, so if you leave tiny little bits in (and you can never get it all out, even if you think you have!!!)
Start at thye begining of the growing season, and keep spraying eveytime you see some!!!
As for Mares tail, you have to 'bruise' the stems, scoring the outside of the stems so that the chemical gets in and use a 'wetter' (washing up liquid) in with the spray to help the spray stick to the stems for longer, then it is the same as bind weed, just keep at it and make sure you spray in october so that as the plants die off they take the chemical into their roots!!!!!
Lea :)

I watched Gardener's World - Monty Don had it in his jewel garden.  He said that the only real thing you can do is to remove all the plants - dig it over removing every bit of root (ha ha - not so easy to do) then replant.  That is what he has had to do.  As for that dreadful horsetail - I have been pulling at that for years without success - can't weaken it - except by heavy planting over it - it does like some light.  The roots go down very deep - making it such a persistant weed.  I hate it - and stupidly when I saw it first - I thought that it was pretty!!!   Then it takes over and looks a mess.  Bindweed is easier to get rid of - I speak from experience - and I didn't dig out the whole border either.

My aunt used to say 'one year seeding is seven years weeding'. I suffer with brambles running wild :/ I hate anything with prickles.

>The garden looked a bit odd with bags dotted about, but the weed died and my dog didn't get chemical on him.

Very innovative!  :-)

I'm well impressed.

Thank you.  If I took my glasses off (!) the bags looked like lovely masses of flowers.  I expect there'll be another display of the beauties next year, though, bindweed being bindweed. 

> pushing long lengths of the horrid stuff into supermarket bags, without pulling it up, and spraying the strongest root-attacking weedkiller I could get into the bags all over the weed, then tying the handles together and leaving it to die.

I had a neighbour who said this is the only way to do it efficiently - except she used black bin bags which might be a little less colourful and she used tent pegs to fix them to the ground to ensure the plant was also denied light.  She also said using a paint brush to apply the weedkiller was better than a spray :)

> ensure the plant was also denied light

I like to think of the bindweed growing and actively taking up the poison and passing it to its roots, so I like it to get the light for that reason.  I have used exclusion of light to kill a re-sprouting willow stump - it needed 2 black bin bags, held on with duck (duct?) tape, covered with a big black plant pot, covered with a black plastic bucket.  It took 2 years, when I checked after the first year, there were still long ghostly sprouts. 

I've heard of the paintbrush method, but it's always seemed easier to spray.  :-)  

If you are going down the chemical route, a friend told me of this useful tip.
A large plastic pop bottle with the bottom cut off......placed over as much of the weed as you can and push and wiggle to get it down in the soil a bit...let the weed grow into the bottle to get maximum foliage to treat.

Then you can spot treat the little blighters in a wholesale way- spray, and drench the soil - into the bottle - without too much cross contamination.