Bindweed, anyone dug down deep?

DaftyDuck

Leif wrote: »

I used the jar trick with some hedge bindweed and it looks very sick now. I suspect it has done the trick.

But it does not touch the field bindweed, too little foliage compared to root. I dug out ~1 m3 of soil last night, and filled a bucket with field bindweed. There was not much to see at the surface. Some root coils expanded to 2m long. Clearly these are storage organs, and a smear of glyphosate on a few leaves won't touch them. I think the only way to deal with this field bindweed is to dig out the bulk of the root, most is less than 1m deep, and then dig out remaining bits when they produce above surface leaves.



360g glyphosate per liter, cripes. I bought some from the garden centre which has 120g per liter. Time to order on ebay.

Any idea how toxic this is to normal plants? By that I mean if the soil around bindweed is damp with Rosate 36, would it percolate through the soil and kill wanted plants 4" away say?

Hang on there, Leif, I've been attacking my field bindweed with the glyphosate in jars trick, and it has worked wonders. I haven't even had to resort to the strong stuff (although I have used it in other places).

Convolvulus arvensis is what I'd call field bindweed..... just so's we're talking the same plant. Calystegia sepium is what I'd call hedge bindweed. The pot method has worked for both for me. I only needed about twelve of the little mustard/jam pots that you get at B&B's to clear a garden of nearly an acre.... so I promise it works! I've posted here several times how I do it; here's my method...

I use standard (Wilko - no expense spared here) Glyphosate. (If you are using extra-strong already, maybe it's killing the tips before the poison gets down to the root..??? not convinced, but...). I dig a small (5cm ) hole around several shoots (ideally when the shoots are about 5 - 10cm long.. if much longer, I pull it up by hand, and wait for the regrowth. I put a small half-full pot of glyphosate in the hole, and poke as many different tips into the juice as I can, damaging them slightly by crushing them (I suspect the damage may increase cellular repair in the leaves & help the glyphosate uptake). I leave the tips in the pot for a few hours, then move the same pot and solution on to a new patch. The glyphosate was refreshed after 2 or 3 uses. I use tweezers to poke the tips in the glyphosate; supposedly not too toxic, but I spent too long working in labs to want to test that out on myself.

I found this worked well on ivy and brambles as well. Ivy got a good crushing to help uptake. With bindweed (both varieties) I found that if I treated plants in one spot, several other shoots nearby (say less than a foot) would die back a couple of weeks later... they were obviously on the same root system. It did take a week from application to show any effect anywhere... I still get field bindweed in places, some from a few remaining roots, some from seed (hedge bindweed doesn't seem to seed as much?), but a few trips with my little posts sees it off.

The neighbours think I am insane.... but they have weedy gardens! :rotfl:

cyclonebri1

Can you explain the difference between the two? must admit I thought bindweed was bindweed.

Leif

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Hang on there, Leif, I've been attacking my field bindweed with the glyphosate in jars trick, and it has worked wonders. I haven't even had to resort to the strong stuff (although I have used it in other places).

How infested was your garden/plot? It is clear that my garden had not been looked after properly for at a guess 20 years, possibly a lot longer, and the roots were very dense in places. I am doing the jar trick too in places. As you say, apparently distinct plants are sometimes from the same root. I guess it depends how they spread i.e. root versus seed.

Leif

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Details of how to dilute for max effectiveness against general garden weeds are sketchy. I used the same dilution ratio for this stuff as the weaker garden centre version, may be able to dilute much further,

I, err, used it neat. In my defence, I found earlier applications at the recommended dilution did not work at all. I do wonder if it depends on the amount of root underground. I would guess one plant I dug out last night had at least 10m of woody root.

Leif

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Can you explain the difference between the two? must admit I thought bindweed was bindweed.

Hedge bindweed grows in hedges, field bindweed grows in fields. Simples.

Seriously though, hedge bindweed does grow in hedges, and has very long stems which as you know creep up stems of plants. It has very large leaves too. And large flowers.

Field bindweed grows in fields and on lawns, and has small leaves (typically ~1cm long), smaller flowers, and where it emerges, it often grows many stems that radiate outwards. I assume it is happy prostrate, though I think it will climb too.

The roots are quite different too. The field ones often form coils, which can be stretched out a huge amount. I've not seen that with hedge bindweed, though they might coil too.

cyclonebri1

ok, so all my experience relates to "hedge bindweed".

Is this also known as columbine?, may be getting confused here

iansamuel

Ah, now I can see I too have both kinds of bindweed :-( I've got a large area of bare land covered in black plastic sheeting which seems to have weakened it.

Leif

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

ok, so all my experience relates to "hedge bindweed".

Is this also known as columbine?, may be getting confused here

I don't know. Columbine normally (always ?) refers to flowers in the genus Aquilegia, which are quite different. Are you thinking about Convolvulus? As pointed out earlier, Convolvulus arvensis is field bindweed, but I am sure many people use the term Convolvulus for both species.

DaftyDuck

Leif wrote: »

How infested was your garden/plot? It is clear that my garden had not been looked after properly for at a guess 20 years, possibly a lot longer, and the roots were very dense in places. I am doing the jar trick too in places. As you say, apparently distinct plants are sometimes from the same root. I guess it depends how they spread i.e. root versus seed.

Well, old lady had lived here for 37 years, elderly husband died 15 years before. We found a wheelbarrow in the lawn. Couldn't see it, just found it. The surveyor "found" a pond (splosh!); we didn't know there was one there when we viewed the house 3 times, and used his directions to find it.

Yep, pretty overgrown. :rotfl:

Edit: did I see you "use it neat"? It will not work as well... longer exposure to weaker solution is better, else it kills the stem before it transports it to the roots...

Leif

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Well, old lady had lived here for 37 years, elderly husband died 15 years before. We found a wheelbarrow in the lawn. Couldn't see it, just found it. The surveyor "found" a pond (splosh!); we didn't know there was one there when we viewed the house 3 times, and used his directions to find it.

Yep, pretty overgrown. :rotfl:

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Edit: did I see you "use it neat"? It will not work as well... longer exposure to weaker solution is better, else it kills the stem before it transports it to the roots...

I've learnt something new.