Bindweed, Creeping Charlie, and Dandelions

12 years ago

This is my first post to the garden side of things. I am an avid gardener, but interior home renovations have meant that our garden has been a little neglected in recent years. This spring our early forays outside have revealed several flourishing weed problems. Some, like the flush of healthy dandelions are surmountable with a little effort, but others, like the bindweed problem, are insidious and nearly impossible to manage. I've found previous threads in various places discussing bindweed, but I would love to hear of any recent solutions or strategies or inspirational success stories. We have few seedlings, but seemingly millions of shoots from an established and far reaching root system. The bindweed is particularly bad within patches of ground cover (periwinkle, creeping juniper) and under and around the root systems of trees (honey locust). I'm almost prepared to double dig and then replant the ground covered areas, but don't know how to proceed under trees. Any advice would be very welcome.

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Comments (2)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
12 years ago
Do not attempt to kill bindweed by digging. Any pieces of roots you miss will keep growing. Pull as many seedlings as you can before they get their roots established. The thread below has the most sage advice I know for fighting this spawn of hell. Read the info from Bry84 toward the top of the page. Luckily, I moved away from bindweed - the easiest way to get rid of it!

Sorry, I like charlie, no idea what to do but look & say "oooh how pretty!"

Dandelions - just get a dandelion fork & fork 'em up from as deep as you can get. If you mow your grass a little higher, that can help. The taller grass makes more shade so they are less vigorous & easier to defeat. OK to go after these with a shovel in a flower bed.

Here is a link that might be useful: bindweed thread
sandn
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you, Purpleinopp.

There's no move in our future, so I will have to conquer the bindweed some other way. Unfortunately, the root system is already well established.

I doubt I will be able to resist some digging, if only to prevent it from encroaching farther into my garden. My previous neighbours allowed it to climb unchecked all over their deck.

Thank you for the thread!