I have a deep hatred of this plant. It is nearly impossible to get rid of. The seeds stay viable for decades, it also spreads underground, and it wants to take over my lawn and garden! I wouldn’t mind so much if it were a hidden innocuous plant. But it insists on climbing everything it can, then dying and leaving brown dead stems draped over nearby plants, fences, etc.
The USU agricultural extension has a pretty good explanation of field bindweed. Supposedly a good lawn can out compete and fight it back. We’re working on the lawn this year, so hopefully I can turn my attention to other things in future years. And as mentioned in the article, herbicide had a noticeable effect, but wasn’t enough to totally kill it back. And the tops pull off of the root easily, so to go after the relatively deep roots you must commit to digging up that part of the garden, lawn, etc. It is rather satisfying to follow several feet of root back and at least limit its expansion though!
As I have labelled it my arch-nemesis for the year, I am devoting a couple hours a week to making sure I pull the tops off the little starts that show up in the garden and lawn. I at least feel like I’m depriving it of some energy from the sun that way, and hopefully it eventually feels the intense negative vibe I’m sending to the bindweed plant, and stops coming up. I do have to remind myself sometimes that we are making some progress, however slow. Most of the bindweed coming up is localized to two major areas now, and those aren’t coming up as vigorously as they used to. (Still healthy enough to grow out several inches in a few days however.) The lawn will get one more shot of herbicides later this fall, mostly because we want to give the lawn one year of pampering and extra help since we tilled and planted it from seed. After that it should be ready to take on the years of weed seeds all on its own.
Later Update:
Found this reference to bindweed or morning glory as well, probably one of the best in-depth discussions I have seen so far. Some of my favorite highlights/(lowlights) from the 2-3 pages of material:
“Over 95% of seeds are hard-coated and can lie dormant in soil for more than 28 years. Seedlings continued to emerge for over 20 years after all the adult plants were removed from an area.” … “Seeds can remain viable in the stomachs of migrating birds.” …. “A 5 cm length of vertical root can regenerate and produce a new plant. Once established, a plant can spread radially up to 3 m per year.” …. “The weed can survive under black plastic sheeting for at least 6 months.”
If only something I wanted to eat were this hardy and persistent. It has a few minor medicinal traits, but not enough that I want to keep it around. Let the war rage on!