Jim Kling's Library tagged weeds →  View Popular

I collected the long strands of bindweed and wrapped them up in balls that I placed inside old jars and tin cans. These I filled with a glyphosate based weed killer, but I mixed it with about 1/3 more water than the instructions suggested, then I covered them over with plastic which I taped down firmly to keep animals and rain out. Do be aware that if these are knocked over and spilt on to plants you want they will die, so it's advisable to keep them at a distance and partly bury them in the ground for stability. It takes time, but I could clearly see the level in the containers reducing as the plant absorbed it. This seemed to work faster in the hot weather as the plant would be drawing more water, and also not removing the new bindweed shoots as they emerge since their growing is causing the plant to soak up more weedkiller, and also these shoots will be your next place to attach another can of solution when the old ones die off. For the first couple of months I saw no effect, although the bindweed had sucked in several pints of weed killer, but then it started to slow down, and after a while I noticed the new growth was an unhealthy yellow colour with holes in the misshapen leaves. About four months after starting this the main root system must have collapsed as the plant just withered away, even the bindweed across the road died (must have been one huge plant under the garden/road). It did continue to sprout the very occasional sickly yellow shoot, but a quick spray of weedkiller dealt with them nicely.

I dreaded the next year as I thought it would come back just as bad, but actually I only found three or four small clumps of bindweed and they were quickly eradicated with a few more pots of weed killer. The third year I found none. Of course seedlings will be a problem if you have neighbours with it in their garden, but they're a million times easier to deal with than the mature plant. More often than not I've just pulled them out and they never came back.