Battling Bindweed - Not the Moral Story I Thought It Was
Convolvulus Arvensis Bindweed. My nemesis. Visible evidence of my moral failure to work hard enough at pulling the weeds in my flowerbeds and garden. It drills up through layers of cardboard and mulch. It chokes the rhubarb, knots the roses, buries the gnomes. Wishing to acquit myself of such public laziness, I resolved that this year, I would rise in the cool of the mornings, patiently enduring the skeeters that bite through long sleeves and jeans, and pull these weeds. I would do one flower bed at a time, maybe half a flower bed a day. I'd do them in rotation. That should take care of them. After a week or so of this, I came back to the first bed. It was again covered in weeds. Oh well, I would just have to be more diligent than the weeds. I told myself it was a case of Good, Better, Best : Good would be to scrape the evidence of the weeds from the surface. Better would be to pull up the white root. Best would be to catch the runner root 6 or 7 in...