Back garden is in two bits. Top half used to be lawn, it's now covered in a ford mk2 Escort, a ford Sierra, brambles and bindweed. It has a garage down one side, with a lean-to perspex greenhouse with a tree that's grown through the roof, it's not salvageable and OH wants to extend the garage (I've agreed as long as he stops putting cars on the 'lawn').
The bottom half has two 6x4 sheds (I think - not been able to measure them yet), in a fairly bad state of repair). Looks like the brambles started in the top half, I don't think they're going to be as bad in the bottom bit, don't think they've reached that far. There's a step about a foot down, with a small retaining wall between top & bottom bit.
The grand plan is to replace the sheds (or repair them,) and add one for me as a potting shed, plus a small greenhouse when funds allow. The top half will be traditional family garden, tough shubs, some flowers for scent & bees, and a lawned area.
The bottom half will be mine, all mine! I'm planning some raised beds down there, same size as a chicken coop (also when funds allow) and practice crop and chicken rotation (so a year where the bed will be fallow and have the chicken coop and run on it, so they can trash it, and enrich it at the same time).
All this will take a fair bit of time and money, both of which are in short supply at the moment, so my priority is getting rid of the brambles, plonking some membrane over the top bit and putting down bark chips so the LO's can play out. Also getting at least some of the bottom dug over, so I can stick crops in - fed up of paying a quid at a chuck for stringy runner beans, when I know I can grow them.
It doesn't help that it's not our house - was Father-in-Law's house, who was a hoarder, so house needs gutting and redecorating. So I can't just nip out and spray glyphosate for 10 minutes. The house is only over the road and down two doors, but I can't leave a boisterous 4 year old and very nearly 2 year old for even 5 minutes - even going to the loo I risk WW3 breaking out
Think I'm going to have to be ebay and car boot queen for the next 6 months, maybe I'll earn enough for that greenhouse I've been hankering after!
If (when!) you find it growing amongst other plants that you don't want to accidentally kill with the glyphosate spray, train it to grow up a cane. After a couple of weeks you can slip the cane out and bundle the bindweed into a plastic bag, spraying it inside the bag to prevent the wind blowing the spray about.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
Does glyphosate work for ivy, I'm sick off it invading from next door and taking over my flower beds. It also creeps between a doule boarded fence so ends up all over the garden.
It does work on ivy hilary. Some say not so well but i've removed ivy with glyphosate. I was treating ivy on its own, sprayed all over, not between plants I wanted to keep.
I like Bob the Gardener's solution; I have a bit of bindweed that comes under the concrete gravel board from the field behind. It then searches for holes in the membrane under the gravel of my drive, where I have cut holes to plant hollyhocks etc. I have to admire its' perseverance. But I like the sneakyness of putting in a stick to trick the bindweed
Bindweed at the centre of the earth... 1st time I've EVER laughed about bindweed!
My garden was full of it, plus brambles & nettles. Some of the areas had never been gardened at all, ever.
First I used bramble killer on the lot. Waited for it do die then cleared surface. Then I sat on the soil, legs akimbo, all very elegant, and gradually shuffled along on my bum and dug it all out with a trowel. This took me every spare moment I had for an entire summer (the garden is big). I spent so long like that, that a robin took to sitting on the toe of my boot and waiting for me to turn up worms for her and her fledgling! Some of the roots were attached to rhizomey things that looked for al the world like giant parsnips. Guess it'd been there a good while! Then when I thought I'd finished I went around again with a spade and took out the deeper bits I'd missed (surprisingly few). Now I just spray the odd bit that comes up thru the fence or whatever. BUT, ths only worked because the soil is light and loamy, making it easier to get the roots out without them breaking. That's also why I did it by hand. Breaking up bindweed roots is also known as PROPAGATION. My neighbours spray theirs twice a year. It always dies off, and always comes back - to the tune of about 6ft of growth twice a year. They probably pitied me, shuffling along on my butt week after week, trowel in hand. But I bet they're jealous now!!
P.S., u can mix weedkiller with flour and paint it onto plants if u don't want it to blow around. The flour makes it stick to the foliage rather than evaporating so it can really soak in. I use this on the odd bramble that comes up in amongst things. U can also chop the bottom off a pop bottle, then when your bindweed has grown up its decoy cane, put the bottle over the top (cut end down), and slide it down with the cane coming up through the neck. U've made yourself a nice little cloche full of bindweed. U can then squirt weedkiller thru the neck of the bottle to your heart's content, or put the lid on, gently upend the cloche and spray into the big end - leave the cloche in place on the soil in case you need to repeat a week later, removing it all when it goes brown. Doing it this way avoids snapping the stems, meaning maximum poison getting down where u want it. Cunning!
Thanks all for the comments above. I'm in a new garden and discovered bindweed the last week. It's come up very rapidly and is everywhere. I've spotted as many of the plants/shoots with Roundup gel in the hope that it will die back. Digging it up would be a nightmare as it is twined around so many other plants that are delicate and I'd like to keep.
Any chance that if I use enough gel on enough plants it will make an impact for future seasons? Obviously where possible I will try to dig up as well.
New question! I have bindweed in one third of my vegetable patch. I had heard that you train it up a cane and then apply a weedkiller you can get rid of it? Any advice???
Posts
Back garden is in two bits. Top half used to be lawn, it's now covered in a ford mk2 Escort, a ford Sierra, brambles and bindweed. It has a garage down one side, with a lean-to perspex greenhouse with a tree that's grown through the roof, it's not salvageable and OH wants to extend the garage (I've agreed as long as he stops putting cars on the 'lawn').
The bottom half has two 6x4 sheds (I think - not been able to measure them yet), in a fairly bad state of repair). Looks like the brambles started in the top half, I don't think they're going to be as bad in the bottom bit, don't think they've reached that far. There's a step about a foot down, with a small retaining wall between top & bottom bit.
The grand plan is to replace the sheds (or repair them,) and add one for me as a potting shed, plus a small greenhouse when funds allow. The top half will be traditional family garden, tough shubs, some flowers for scent & bees, and a lawned area.
The bottom half will be mine, all mine! I'm planning some raised beds down there, same size as a chicken coop (also when funds allow) and practice crop and chicken rotation (so a year where the bed will be fallow and have the chicken coop and run on it, so they can trash it, and enrich it at the same time).
All this will take a fair bit of time and money, both of which are in short supply at the moment, so my priority is getting rid of the brambles, plonking some membrane over the top bit and putting down bark chips so the LO's can play out. Also getting at least some of the bottom dug over, so I can stick crops in - fed up of paying a quid at a chuck for stringy runner beans, when I know I can grow them.
It doesn't help that it's not our house - was Father-in-Law's house, who was a hoarder, so house needs gutting and redecorating. So I can't just nip out and spray glyphosate for 10 minutes. The house is only over the road and down two doors, but I can't leave a boisterous 4 year old and very nearly 2 year old for even 5 minutes - even going to the loo I risk WW3 breaking out
Think I'm going to have to be ebay and car boot queen for the next 6 months, maybe I'll earn enough for that greenhouse I've been hankering after!
If (when!) you find it growing amongst other plants that you don't want to accidentally kill with the glyphosate spray, train it to grow up a cane. After a couple of weeks you can slip the cane out and bundle the bindweed into a plastic bag, spraying it inside the bag to prevent the wind blowing the spray about.
Does glyphosate work for ivy, I'm sick off it invading from next door and taking over my flower beds. It also creeps between a doule boarded fence so ends up all over the garden.
It does work on ivy hilary. Some say not so well but i've removed ivy with glyphosate. I was treating ivy on its own, sprayed all over, not between plants I wanted to keep.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I like Bob the Gardener's solution; I have a bit of bindweed that comes under the concrete gravel board from the field behind. It then searches for holes in the membrane under the gravel of my drive, where I have cut holes to plant hollyhocks etc. I have to admire its' perseverance. But I like the sneakyness of putting in a stick to trick the bindweed
Bindweed at the centre of the earth... 1st time I've EVER laughed about bindweed!
My garden was full of it, plus brambles & nettles. Some of the areas had never been gardened at all, ever.
First I used bramble killer on the lot. Waited for it do die then cleared surface. Then I sat on the soil, legs akimbo, all very elegant, and gradually shuffled along on my bum and dug it all out with a trowel. This took me every spare moment I had for an entire summer (the garden is big). I spent so long like that, that a robin took to sitting on the toe of my boot and waiting for me to turn up worms for her and her fledgling! Some of the roots were attached to rhizomey things that looked for al the world like giant parsnips. Guess it'd been there a good while! Then when I thought I'd finished I went around again with a spade and took out the deeper bits I'd missed (surprisingly few). Now I just spray the odd bit that comes up thru the fence or whatever. BUT, ths only worked because the soil is light and loamy, making it easier to get the roots out without them breaking. That's also why I did it by hand. Breaking up bindweed roots is also known as PROPAGATION. My neighbours spray theirs twice a year. It always dies off, and always comes back - to the tune of about 6ft of growth twice a year. They probably pitied me, shuffling along on my butt week after week, trowel in hand. But I bet they're jealous now!!
P.S., u can mix weedkiller with flour and paint it onto plants if u don't want it to blow around. The flour makes it stick to the foliage rather than evaporating so it can really soak in. I use this on the odd bramble that comes up in amongst things. U can also chop the bottom off a pop bottle, then when your bindweed has grown up its decoy cane, put the bottle over the top (cut end down), and slide it down with the cane coming up through the neck. U've made yourself a nice little cloche full of bindweed. U can then squirt weedkiller thru the neck of the bottle to your heart's content, or put the lid on, gently upend the cloche and spray into the big end - leave the cloche in place on the soil in case you need to repeat a week later, removing it all when it goes brown. Doing it this way avoids snapping the stems, meaning maximum poison getting down where u want it. Cunning!
Thanks all for the comments above. I'm in a new garden and discovered bindweed the last week. It's come up very rapidly and is everywhere. I've spotted as many of the plants/shoots with Roundup gel in the hope that it will die back. Digging it up would be a nightmare as it is twined around so many other plants that are delicate and I'd like to keep.
Any chance that if I use enough gel on enough plants it will make an impact for future seasons? Obviously where possible I will try to dig up as well.
New question! I have bindweed in one third of my vegetable patch. I had heard that you train it up a cane and then apply a weedkiller you can get rid of it? Any advice???