Bindweed & ground elder

Somethings I have been told by a professional RHS chappy;

The only way to kill bindweed is to use glyphosate.  He said to find the tip of the bindweed, make up your glyphosate solution and dunk the end of the plant in it.  Leave it for 7 days then take it out, the plant should have absorbed enough of the chemical to kill the root, but you may need another one or two goes at it if it's enormously long.  Also saves getting it all over everything else.  Dunno if it works or not, we have tried it and it did kill the majority of the plant, on our second week of dunking now :o)

He said bindweed had been found in abandoned mines 30 feet below ground surface!  Nightmare or what.

We have loads of it because I think next door is setting out to show his at chelsea or something the amount he has!!!  And he's a gardener for his day-job, can you believe that!

The RHS chappy also said for ground-elder, at least I think it was ground elder that it is very shallow rooted?  So best way to get rid of it is to put some kind of surface on top of it, bark or straw or something, wait for the elder to make it's way to the top, when it has just sweep the whole lot away and burn it.  Again not sure if it works but he out to know what he is talking about.  He did say something about horse-tail too and like a complete idiot I didn't listen properly to that bit because we don't have any, duh!

hoe hoe hoe! (and I'm not laughin  )

Babyshoes, if you are planning on using glyphosate it won't work in the winter.  This is because it needs the plant to be actively growing in order for the chemicals to be taken down to the root.  The plant won't be growing actively in winter.

Was chatting with neighbouring farmer on Sunday, he always treats bindweed with glyphosate in the Autumn: apparently it gets taken down to the roots better then.

Ah, thanks for that Yorkie, will try it sooner rather than later then!

The cotton wool application idea is good too SMD66, though I think I have too much bindweed for that at the moment, it might be useful once I have got the worst under control.