Bindweed is a pernicious weed with arrowhead-shaped leaves and white to pink flowers. The only way to completely rid yourself of bindweed, the scourge of farmers and gardeners alike, is to move or to die. Persistent management can help control this deep-rooted nuisance.

Step 1: Prevention is the key. Use only bindweed-free seed, plant starts, soils and amendments. Immediately remove any seedlings that appear in freshly planted areas.

Bindweed

Step 2: For existing bindweed stands, eliminate flowers before they set seed by pinching off or cutting back the flowering sections of the plant. Pull new weed growth with less than six leaves. Pulling established plants with more than six leaves will only serve to strengthen the plant and encourage its spread.

Step 3: Cut back new growth weekly to keep the plant at bay. Inconsistent cutting will encourage the spread of bindweed if new growth is allowed to flourish between cuttings.

Step 4: Tilling areas infected with bindweed will expose dormant seeds and create a bumper crop of bindweed seedlings. Tilling should only be done if it can be followed with extensive daily weeding to remove newly propagated seeds.

Step 5: Flame weeding can be used in place of cutting or hand pulling. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions and heat, but do not burn, the existing plants.

Step 6: Weed barriers and thick mulches can be successful in controlling bindweed in specific areas if no sunlight is allowed to reach the soil. Established bindweed will migrate from mulched areas to adjacent exposed soils. Bindweed seeds can lie dormant for five or more years. Heavy mulching is a long-term proposition.

Step 7: Some control of field bindweed may be achieved through cultivation. A two- to three-year sequence of rye and vetch planted in the fall, disked or hoed down in the spring, followed immediately by a planting of buckwheat or oats and peas, subsequently disked or hoed down in late summer, may help discourage bindweed growth. Plantings of pumpkins, sunflowers, alfalfa, corn or legumes have also shown some success in controlling bindweed infestations.

Step 8: Introduction of gall mites to infested areas has been mildly successful in controlling the spread of bindweed in hot, dry climates.

Step 9: Herbicide control, that includes glyphosate or dicamba, can suppress new growth when the herbicide is applied directly to plant leaves along with a surfactant. Herbicides will not eliminate bindweed.