A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Help I'm getting strangledtr

Hi Everyone, My house was built 3 years ago in a heavily wooded area that has lots of wild species all over the place. Ever since I moved in I've been struggling to gain control of a patch of garden bordering the street and my driveway and I'm losing the battle terribly. My problem is 2 different creeping species of which I'm attaching pictures. I sprayed the whole area with Round up before putting in plantings, and this stuff just keeps coming back. It killed a small evergreen and is strangling everything else that I've planted there. How can i get rid of this stuff?

http://picasaweb.google.com/Robb2009/Album1/photo#5218154653356754930

http://picasaweb.google.com/Robb2009/Album1/photo#5218154647742510610

The first appears to be wild morning glory aka bindweed. I am not sure of the second one. It looks like you will need to be diligent pulling and spraying until it disappears altogether.

Hi Robb.

I am familiar with the plant in the first picture but don't know it's name. It's just a creeper that comes up at exactly this time of year.

Your bigger problem is the wild morning glory (the white flower). It will choke anything it comes into contact with.

Solutions for morning glory: 1) get the heavy duty-est Roundup currently on the market, not the cheap basic stuff from Home Depot; 2) start yanking it out by hand: this involves learning to recognize it when it's only 1-2" tall, taking advantage of raining days (so you get the roots, too), and finding the 'source' of it (when it's already inter-twined with your plants) and yanking or cutting it out. This involves poking our head underneath what ever "good" plant you have that it's winding its way into, tracing it back, and then cutting the morning glory at ground level. Even if you can't untangle it from your good plant, obviously cutting it will kill what's above the cut and stop the choking. You may have to do this repeatedly.

I, too, struggled with morning glory in an old garden I was resurrecting. It takes diligence and patience to get it under control. The trick is recognizing it (either to round it up or yank it out) when it's just emerging, which here in Cincinnati begins in... May (?) and continues all summer.

It's a morning coffee walk around chore!

Good luck!

ive always called thet stuff chickweed,dont really know if im right or not