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Any ideas what this is?

Hello all, very newbie question. I finally have a garden after 27 years of living in a flat. I've cleared a lot of the bushes and long grass and most of the forest that seems to have been allowed to take hold. A few days after clearing it all back to mud and digging up the roots so they don't grow back, a creeping plant has grown in a big way. Quickly and on a big scale. I was wondering what it is and the best way to get rid of it. Shall I dig down again and pull up the roots or some sort of weed killer to get rid for good. It's quite a big area. Image below of the offending plant :)

Thanks for any help

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Posts

  • plant pauperplant pauper Posts: 6,904

    It's bindweed and it's an auld b****r! I'm battling it myself by trailing bits out and spraying bits and a bit of swearing. Some people will recommend placing it in a bag while it's still in the ground and spraying with glyphosphate weed killer. If you do decide to dig you have to get every single mm of it or it will regrow!

    Well done on getting your first garden. You've come to the right place! image

  • StevedaylillyStevedaylilly Posts: 1,102

    Agree, it's bindweed and not the nicest weed you could have in your garden. Get every bit out as plant pauper has mentioned. It will tie its self to plants and effect growth 

  • chickychicky Posts: 10,410

    Horrible stuffimage. I'm not usually one for chemicals, but in this case glyphosphate is probably the best way forward, before you start planting anything you want to save.

  • joevass787joevass787 Posts: 19

    Thanks for the quick reply and all the info! I think I might go the difficult route to start with and try to slowly dig and sift it all up. Because I've dug up all the other weeds I can see better where it's growing and hopefully get it all up. Failing that, I now know what to spray on it if all else fails. Thank you all for the informative responses! I'm learning haha 

  • plant pauperplant pauper Posts: 6,904

    We're all learning! image Good luck.

    Don't forget to keep us up to date with all the prep and planting. We're dead nosey! image

  • Lily PillyLily Pilly Posts: 3,845

    We had it in our last garden, I used to unwind it slowly,  get it as long as I could , lay it out and then glusophate it!! I had strands all over the gardenimage

    I dread it ever appearing here, I wash all roots of bought plants!

    good luckimage

    Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
    A A Milne
  • image Bindweed, my nemesis. Dig it all out, dig dig dig image

  • BobFlannigonBobFlannigon Posts: 619

    It's not exactly practical to spray it with chemicals, you'll likely just end up spraying your entire garden.  It's easy enough to track back to it's root, just snap it off and check the same area again in a couple of days to make sure it didn't sprout again (or dig out the root if you're really worried).  It's never appears to affect any of my plants although they are well established in the areas it usually appears, so I'm sure it would if I didn't remove it.

    It's rather a shame that it happens to have such a beautiful flower, one of the nicest of any weed in my opinion!

  • BookertooBookertoo Posts: 1,306

    Whatever you do, do it carefully as the tiniest bit of stem or root will generate a new plant.  I did not have it until the last 3 years or so and now it is becoming a dratted problem in the fruit cage - where i cannot dig or poison - grrrrrrr……...

  • I don't spray mine a such but have adapted a method I saw on an old gardening programme many years ago. When it first appears I wrap it around a bamboo cane and let it grow until I have a fair few leaves on it. The I don my super stylish marigolds, get my bucket of  glyphosphate out and an absorbent cloth. Cloth gets soaked, weeds get wrapped and wiped then it gets left to do its stuff. You have to be careful not to get the cloth so wet it drips but there's no spray drift and it does die back eventually.

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