Hedge bindweed or wild morning glories (I think) - how did they get here?

[D Papa]

Hello Everyone, well this summer I've been watching these huge thickets of green leaves grow in two previously-open areas of my corner flowerbed. I was superbusy last summer & fall and they're kind of a blur, so I assumed I had planted SOMETHING there, although I was amazed by how much they were spreading out. Well, this week I'm seeing blooms, they are round cup-shaped flowers, the buds are on superthin stringy vines, a few of them have wound their way around neighboring hydrangeas, and they close at night. After Googling awhile I'm guessing they are hedge bindweed or wild morning glories, which I KNOW I didn't plant intentionally. So I can't figure out how they got there right in those two strategic places; could they have developed from something that was there previously? And does anyone know anything about them -- would they be safe to move to an isolated location? I thought I read somewhere they can be poisonous. Either way they are DEFINITELY coming out, I can't have them taking over the entire flowerbed.

 

[Owdboggy]

If it was Britain then I would say that was Bindweed. Good luck removing it. The roots go on forever and every tiny bit will regrow.

 

[Marck]

Yes, bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). This weedy morning-glory is a pernicious weed. Don't let it grow just to admire its white flowers. This weed does not play nice. This was once the worst weed in my garden, and could be again, if I let it.

You will never be rid of it, but you can control it by pulling it out everywhere you see it. There will still be roots and rhizomes in the soil forever, but if you keep it's greenery to an absolute minimum you'll minimize bindweed's damage, and slowly weaken the colony.

I had/have a huge colony of bindweed, but it is now almost invisible. Long ago, when I first started pulling my bindweed, it was a lot of work, but now my bindweed only puts up a few stray stems, which I still vigilantly pull up whenever I encounter them.

Wherever possible, cover your bindweed-infested area with several levels of cardboard. Put wood chips or bark on top for added coverage and a much more attractive look. The bindweed will still come out around the edges of the cardboard, but this will make it easier to find and pull. Only try to pull out the rhizome stem from the surface. Digging them out would be futile madness.

If that is too much work, at least pull out enough so that it doesn't entwine and cover your other plants, or produce flowers that will produce seeds.

I said I don't try to dig out the rhizomes, but if I am digging a planting hole or tilling a bed for another reason, I do pick out the rhizome bits, if I see them.

 

[D Papa]

Yes, bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). This weedy morning-glory is a pernicious weed. Don't let it grow just to admire its white flowers. This weed does not play nice. This was once the worst weed in my garden, and could be again, if I let it.

Thanks for your fast reply and information. I sent a pic to a nearby friend who also confirmed bindweed. So both batches are out. I dug them up entirely and removed whatever vines I could find. Very glad I asked here, as only about 5 flowers had bloomed, so I caught it as early as possible.

So let me ask you all this -- is it possible that bindweed would barely propagate, with no flowers, for the first summer after planting... and then explode in size and volume the next? Because the main stem / root bases (rhizomes?) were in POTTING soil, leading me to believe in my initial suspicion, that these were plants that I bought and planted in October 2019, and were incorrectly tagged as "Banana Cream" Shasta Daisies.

 

[Marck]

It is possible for Bindweed to be a weed in nursery containers, though usually one encounters it in open ground. In any case the important thing now is to remove it. Keep checking the infested area for more sprouting stems. it would be rare luck to be able to remove it all in one go.

 

[Jewell]

Pull, pull, pull and follow the rhizomes getting as much out as possible. Never let any small pulled piece lie on the ground. I have pulled half meter long vines only to find they were a small finger nail size piece of broken root blossoming into a vigorous vine. As Marck said, this is the best method. Poison never kills the rhizomes completely but will kill everything else.

 

[D Papa]

Thanks all. I'm about to have minor knee surgery, hopefully won't be put out too long, and I will keep watch when I can get back out there. But as I said about how they got there, they were in the EXACT open spots where I was sure I planted some kind of white daisies two years ago... I have never even seen this weed, certainly not anywhere on my property... and the flowerbed is on my corner -- no one else next to it! Here's before & after one of the spots:

Anyway thanks for the fast replies so I was able to catch them before there were a billion seeding flowers.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

In its place ... I had a friend with a scrap yard and it grew up the chainlink fence covering it in white flowers in the summer, looked better than the cars he was breaking We used to catch bees in the flowers and pretend they were out of tune radios when we were kids, there is a story that uses it called 'Playing out' on my 'Storyshack' YouTube channel.
It will respond to poison, but you have to catch the young shoots as they appear about three or four times to actually kill the roots. It's in my blackcurrants, I hoe weekly and regard it as a way of lifting nutrients to the surface