WEEDS!!!

Aaaaargh!! Please please please can anyone tell me the most effective way of eradicating bindweed and horsetail from my banking? I don't want to harm any of my established plants (I've a selection of shrubs and ground cover plants in there), but I'm fighting a losing battle with the pesky stuff.

the only way I know without using chemicals is to keep hoeing and digging up the roots, these two are probably the most persistent weeds.

I have a problem with bindweed, the best way is to carefully dig up the roots they are quite close to the surface, but try not to break the roots, was hoeing for a while and found the problem just got worse it multiplies very quickly.

DIG out dig out and dig out again that is the only sure answer to removing bind weed it's a slow process and can take many seasons to finally eradicate there are chemical options to use but you need to spray when enough surface leaf area to absorb the chemical most chemicals though will also kill off most other soft plants as well so if growing in a bed of shrubbs then digging out is the only answer and use a fork not a spade that just slices the roots into even smaller secetion and each one will grow new stems. and as for mares tail or horsetail as it is also known - then my words would be - and im sorry to be blunt, but forget it, you would have to dig out all your palnts and shrubs and regulary dig over the ground repeatedly removing the almost invisible black coloured roots, but leave just one part and you'll have a new colony with in 6 months . there are chemicals on the market to use, but im never sure of total eradication and of course will kill every thing else. there is one brand that local authorities use and other professional contractors use but once sparyed nothing will grow in the ground for 2 years at least and i mean nothing it kills everything including trees if i'm asked in my professional capacity i'd say give up and forget it

MR VEG

Out here in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, I get a very persistent weed. It looks a little like red clover, and I have never found out what it is.

The only way to get it out is to dig, if you try to pull it it just breaks and grows again.

Anybody got any idea what this is?

Morning,
Well, I think it might depend on the size of the area that's affected with the convolvulous - if it's not too large it's possible to eradicate it with patient and frequent applications to the leaves of Tumbleweed glyphosate. I've got rid of it in small areas but our garden is too large and the pesky stuff too persistent in some areas. It's back-breaking work but, eventually, it can get rid of it without harming anything else. I got rid of Japanese Knotweed over two or three summers with it.

As to Mare's Tail, I read in the Telegraph a year or so ago that if you clear the area just around its base and pull - i.e. stretching its reddish neck below soil level - it will slowly and eventually depart. It doesn't like having its neck stretched. Again I can't vouch for it because we have loads of it over large areas and so can't fully check. Worth a try though if your problem isn't too huge.
Other than that, like me, you have to live with it I'm afraid.
Good luck. I'd be interested to know how it goes.