Athmar Park

Bindweed Solution

Aug 21, 2005

By Carol e Campbell

When I bought my AP house in 1988, I inherited a seriously large, overgrown and weedy garden. Since we don?’t use pesticides nor poisons unnecessarily, I weed by hand. Over the years, I?’ve pretty much been able to get rid of all the weeds in my yard except for my gardening nemesis, that invincible binddweed.

Sixteen years of pulling up bindweed had come to no avail-it ALWAYS came back... until this year that is. I finally hit on a bindweed solution that kills the darn stuff without putting unnecessary poisons into the environment. If you?’d like a bindweed-free garden here?’s what to do:

- Gather up a bindweed vine, following it back to its root.
- Leaving the vine attached to its root, stuff it all into a ziplock sandwich bag.
- Carefully add a few drops of some kind of systemic weedkiller (Round-Up or some other brand; just make sure it?’s a systemic) into the bag with the vine. Be stingy: a little poison goes a long way.
- Zip the bag closed as much as you can, pushing the vine stem to one corner of the bag.
- Gently massage the outside of the bag to distribute the poison across a large area of the vine within the bag.
- Place the bag back on the ground and weigh it down with a rock. Make sure the part of the bag that can?’t be sealed, is facing up so the poison doesn?’t leak out.
- Do this to each bindweed you come across in your yard.
- Leave undisturbed until the vine is dry and brittle. Then, simply remove the whole thing, bag and all. The poison will have been absorbed down into the root, and viola!

You?’ll be bindweed-free, without spraying poison all over your yard and garden!