Bindweed taking over your garden? The little-known use for the pesky weed that can help your other flowers thrive

The Sun

10 hours ago

BINDWEED can take over your entire garden, but one plant expert revealed a sneaky trick to turn your fortunes around.
The pesky plant has a little-known use which can help your other plants thrive.
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Simon Akeroyd is a gardening expert who was previously Head Gardener for the National Trust and the Royal Horticulture Society.
The star took to Facebook to share how you can turn having bindweed into an advantage.
Although bindweed can produce some beautiful flowers, it can take over your entire garden and will start 'outcompeting' your other plants.
According to Simon, you have to remove every single root - otherwise the pesky weed will come back.
If you add it to your compost or to a landfill, bindweed just takes root again and spreads back into your garden.
Instead, the gardening expert has a secret trick to make bindweed into a 'super-charged' plant tea.
First, you have to drown it in a bucket of water and leave it for several weeks.
Wait until it turns to mush and the water turns brown.
Simon says it is the perfect colour if it looks like 'swamp water'.
Bottle the brown liquid and pour some into your watering can.
This is a superfood for your plants and can help the flowers you actually want grow even faster.
In the caption to his post, Simon wrote: 'I'm truly sorry if you have bindweed in your garden as it is a real menace, swamping and smothering any plants in its wake!
'However, at [sic] an attempt of turning a negative into a positive…bindweed makes the most amazing, super-charged liquid plant feed.
'Give your plants some of this, and your plants will romp away!
'It's a great way of getting rid of bindweed roots because you can't add them to your compost as they will regrow and spread quickly.'
The news comes after gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh revealed his trick for transforming your garden.
He says that you should buy one or two 'hardy' plants every month, to steadily build up your collection of plants.
He said: 'The best way of bringing interest all year round, is to go to your local nursery or your local garden centre, once a month, every month of the year, and buy one or two hardy plants for the garden that are in flower when you go.
He added: 'Instead of visiting once in May or June, when everybody goes and buys up everything and plants it and it looks lovely - if you go every month of the year and buy something in flower, you end up with a garden which has always got something interesting in it.
'It's such an obvious thing to say, but it's a lovely easy way of making sure that you always have colour in your garden."
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