Bind weed in perennial garden

[cjkast 1]

Have an old garden that is being overrun with bindweed. After reading several articles, I am hesitant to  "paint glycophosphate on the leaves" method to preserve the mature perennials. Other than removing all the plants, does anyone have further recommendations/experience in clearing this frustrating weed?

[Janet Macunovich 32]

We do have experience to relate but a bindweed story is never easy, nor does it come with an assured happy end.

This will sound extreme but we've been fighting bindweed for 30 years, with some infestations still ongoing though finally "under control" after ten years... We don't ever sugar coat dealking with bindweed, and we have told people, seriously, that if they can move to another property that's a reasonable answer. Our best case of bad bindweed seemingly beaten involved two years' work.

When we have a bindweed infestation:

We remove everything we can remove, such as all the perennials and groundcover in the infested area, and shrubs that can be spared.

We dispose of everything in those root balls in a hot compost. Then we dig every square foot we can dig, removing every bindweed root we see. They are, thankfully, very recognizable in their thickness and whiteness.

Then we cover the dig-over area with a thick coat of newspaper -- at least 6 thicknesses, or two of yard waste bag paper -- plus about 4 inches of mulch.

Then we monitor the area for and pull any emerging bindweed shoot, paying special attention to the areas we noted as worst,  as we dug, and the spaces right near remaining shrubs' and trees' bases. This often means crawling under shrubs to check and pull bindweed shoots.

We check weekly for the whole first growing season.

Aside: You might use an herbicide but the root system of an established bindweed is huge, often enough to produce thousands of leaves without running out of stored energy. The above ground parts can only transfer so much of an herbicide like glyphosate to the root, where it will starve a part of the root. It is highly unlikely that all the root or eve a significant portion will be killed, even if you spray the entire thriving colony's foliage.

If after one growing season we have seen that emergence of new bindweed shoots is restricted to a particular area, we'll replant other areas. But we still keep monitoring and pulling weekly. Until we stop seeing new shoots, then we move to an every two-week schedule.

When neighboring properties are involved, that's the hardest situation, because unless everyone follows this schedule, the bindweed remains strong in one place or another, and re-invades from there. It can also re-invade from under the lawn, so that sometimes we have had to smother and monitor lawn areas, too.

I hope this helps.

[cjkast 1]

Thanks for the info. My strategy was to dig up what perennials I can an plant in a container large enough for the root ball after giving it a "wash" to clear away what can be seen of any bindweed roots in the treasured plants and pitch the rest of the plants. This will be a long annual project to maintain the integrity of what part of the garden is not infested at this point. How can I protect the part of the garden that is not showing any shoots as of yet?

[Janet Macunovich 32]

If you keep the existing bindweed pulled whenever you see it, you will restrict its spread. If it doesn't keep foliage in the light, it doesn't make more energy and thus can't increase. The more we pull, the longer we keep at it, the smaller the area where it re-emerges. We are essentially chasing it back to its main roots. So that's your best protection. That, and NOT planting anything new into the area you're de-weeding, not until you have had no re-emergence in that space for a growing season.