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Plant taking over my garden!

dfrh535dfrh535 Posts: 2
edited May 2020 in Problem solving
Hello, hoping someone can help me. This climbing plant (i think it’s a Clematis but it was here when we moved in) is taking over my entire garden and strangling all the other plants in the same bed.
It sends out little sister shoots right down flowers bed at the side of the lawn, and into a rocky area next door. So it’s just spreading like wild fire.
Last year I cut it right back, pulled every stray shoot up and attempted to put in some trellis and twisted the remaining vines to grow upwards, I tended to it as best my limited gardens knowledge allowed but every time I get out there again it’s spread and I spend hours pulling it out.
I now just want rid of it but there seems so many shoots I don’t know where to begin.
I have a toddler who’s still interested in eating everything in sight and two cats so I’m nervous about using chemicals.
any tips would be greatly appreciated! 

Below are picture of the flowers, the mass of roots from the main plant and sister shoots almost 3 metres away! 

Thank you

Posts

  • Alan Clark2 in LiverpoolAlan Clark2 in Liverpool Posts: 2,190
    It is Periwinkle, not Clematis.

    https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/solve-problems/vinca-or-periwinkle/
  • dfrh535dfrh535 Posts: 2
    Ah! Thank you! @pansyface completely agree. The cats and the toddler haven’t tried to eat the plants (to my knowledge) Of course I never leave my son alone and we talk about the flowers and the plants, but he’s only 18 months and a little young to understand in any great detail. He does love to run round and play football, I’m worried some chemicals may inadvertently transfer if the ball goes into the flower bed should we use weed killer. The cats also sleep in the shade under the plants in the flower bed, and use them to creep past the very excitable toddler when he’s outside!
  • Novice23Novice23 Posts: 200
    Definitely Vinca.  Yes it will grow anywhere and everywhere.  I dig masses of it up every year and next year, there it is, back again.  So I have learned to live with it, let it flower in the later spring, then hack it back to the ground.   I also dig up new shoots whenever I see them, and try to keep it as short as possible as the longer stems will re-root where it touches the soil it left undisturbed.  The upside is the garden does not look bare in the winter......    
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