What’s your weed nemesis?
Mine is undoubtedly bindweed.
Honestly, it would gladly take over the entire garden each summer were it not for my attempts to restrict its growth. It starts in April, with little shoots popping up and me pulling them up as carefully as I can, trying to get as much of the spaghetti-like root before it snaps. By June, I’m swamped and it’s out of control (well, it’s not as under control as I’d like, let’s put it that way) and by July/August, the white flowers look absolutely lovely and positively charming growing up the fence and I realise that I’ve lost the battle yet again.
For the most part, I don’t let it get too wildly out of control in the raised beds though – it’s just the fence and edges that somehow evade my weeding skills.
I popped something on instagram to this effect the other day, and some of the other common weed nemeses for gardeners include docks, ground elder and mare’s tail. I was relieved to see a number of others sharing my own nemesis, with bindweed getting a lot of votes!
It seems that the most common approach, and the one I adhere to, is “just keep pulling it up and eventually it will weaken.”
I must say, this approach has worked really well for me with another weed that I faced when I first took on my plot: Japanese Knotweed. Yep, that was one I dealt with. Nightmare. Much like bindweed, its shoots popped up consistently in early spring, and the root system is quite impressive. I started by digging out some of its enormous woody roots, identifiable by being bright orange in the centre, and then just kept pulling it out every time I saw it. I do still see a few shoots each year, but 10 years on I’d say it has been knocked down by around 80-90 percent.
I still hope for a similar result with bindweed, although it is so prevalent in neighbouring gardens and hedgerows that I feel sure new seeds will blow in even if I did succeed in getting rid of it. Still, I keep trying, pulling up shoots and roots where I can (perhaps in 10 years I’ll report back that I’ve finally done it!?)
I should say that I have also used weed suppressing fabric to cover entire beds, for a couple of years at a time. For those who are also battling bindweed, I can report that it made minimal difference and the plant came back super quickly when I removed the fabric. I’m not sure how many years of full light-blocking it would take to kill it off, but I’m guessing upwards of five.
There are a couple of links to old articles of mine about the ongoing weed fights that I have – keep reading below!
