If you have the ability and determination to keep pulling you CAN kill out bindweed. The key is an obcession and unrelenting, continuous attack at every emergence. If you keep removing the new growth the root eventually uses up all of its carbohydrates and dies. Good luck.
hortster

Thank you, Horster!
I will try. Whether I can cultivate weed pulling as obsession, I'm not sure. But I will try.

Umm, you can't just "try."

In order to win, you must be consistent and persistent.

I guess a lot of it would depend on the size of your infestation. It sounds big. There are probably millions of seeds throughout the property that will be sprouting over the next few years. Pull them immediately. Agree with jean, trying is not enough, and unfortunately it will probably take several years. For example, I've been trying to kill a mimosa tree stump enmeshed in chain link fence and some blackberry vines in various spots by removing the growth (almost) every day for years. The battle continues... Good luck.

Thanks, all. Sorry for getting your name wrong, Hortster (makes more sense this way).

Most of the bindweed seems to be coming from a well established root system, but I will keep my eye out for seedlings. I'm already on top of a burgeoning population of garlic mustard seedlings, so any errant sprouts will meet the same fate.

I tend toward weeding binges, rather than an everyday approach, so I may have to adopt some new habits.
I'll make a progress report later in the season.

Any plant, deprived of access to sunlight, will eventually die. So cutting any green growth from any plant will, eventually, kill it. If you neighbor is allowing that to grow you may well need to edge along the fence to keep any encroaching roots from growing in. That may need to be done a couple of times a year or more.
The use of most all herbicides by the average homeowner in Ontario is now banned, so those are not an option for people living there.

I have been fighting the bindweed-garlic mustard-goathead-purple nightshade war for the entire 7 years since I moved to NM. There are definitely alot less of each as I have been very diligent in pulling them. It is not an exaggeration to say the first few years I lived on this lot I spent 20 or more hours each week pulling weeds. So there is hope - I don't have nearly the bindweed I used to. My neighbor on one side keeps up with her weeds - on the other side they do not - so I keep getting it trying to crawl through the fence from that side. Plus the bazillion seeds that are probably still in the ground. I try to attract alot of wildlife to my lot with plants, feeders and water sources so try to avoid chemicals as much as possible.

Thanks Kimmsr, Aklinda, and of course, you, Yoda (very funny).

I've begun digging a deep channel beside the fence and I plan to put a barrier of some kind there to at least discourage the bindweed from coming over. I've turned up many of those robust fleshy white roots during my digging. Although I know they can go much deeper, most of the roots are in the top 6" of soil. Aklinda, I won't have 20 hrs a week(!) to devote to this but your story is encouraging. The bindweed is all coming from one side; the garlic mustard is spreading millions of seedlings from the other; and creeping Charlie has claimed the centre (to say nothing of the dandelions, which are everywhere).
Our backyard, along with many others in our downtown leafy neighbourhood, is a mecca for wildlife and we are committed to keeping things free of chemicals.
May the force be with me, and anyone else fighting this battle.

You won't kill bindweed by pulling. (If we are talking about Calystegia sepium)

But you can get rid of it by digging. You will need to entirely remove any plants you want to keep and check their roots very thoroughly for bindweed roots. Then you start double digging, using a garden fork, not spade or shovel. I cleared part of my allotment this way and reckoned on an hour per 10 foot strip one forkful wide. You need to lift the soil on the fork and shake it, removing every tiny scrap of bindweed root by hand. Basically you are sifting all the soil in your garden. Luckily the roots are white so you can see them. Don't break the roots - follow them as far as you can trace them.
You have to be absolutely thorough and very patient. A section done by my BIL in half the time has never been BW free.

Good luck.

I have a similar infestation. Zone 5b.

I can say from personal experience that mulching (denying light) does not work. I have a bed that I sprayed, sheet mulched with cardboard, then mulched with easily 6-8" of wood mulch. Within 2 seasons, the roots have moved up towards the surface and sprouted in multiple areas.

If you are working in garden beds, drip irrigation to desired plants (as opposed to watering entire beds) would help deny the weeds.

Some articles report pulling the shoots is effective, while others dismiss this technique.

I am going to try hitting new growth in my beds during this spring rainy season with glyphosate, then again in the fall when plants store nutrients for winter.

What seems most effective is a good tight turf or dense plantings of early, quick-growing perennials that shades out any undergrowth.

"The root system is deep, growing as deep as 27 feet, so pulling or hoeing the weed is ineffective. According to one study, it required 13 years to eliminate bindweed using this method; any shoots that are missed will continue to nourish the vast root system." - http://diagnostics.montana.edu/plant/topics/fieldbindweed.html

What I have found most effective is waiting until they are about 6 inches above ground in length before pulling them. Sounds conterproductive right? But after talking with some horticulturists, the best way to end bindweed is to slowly break down and deplete it's reserves (the long and intensive root system) and that is best done by allowing it to exert energy creating new growth, but not yet participating in photosynthesis, and remove it as it is almost about to start gathering more for reserves (about 6 inches). But know before you begin, you are in for the long haul and you can't let up on pulling them.

I had tons of bindweed when I moved to my house a few years ago. It was around so many desirable ornamentals I really couldn't spray. My method was to pull anything and everything I saw every possible day starting in the fall. The next spring, it started re-emerging and I started pulling immediately. I'm sure the plant exhausts a lot of resources in the early Spring. It could tell it was getting weaker and weaker. I was able to basically eliminate horsetail with the same diligence. I haven't seen any this year BUT you cannot rest and you can't give an inch, or a leaf as it were. My neighbor is housing the rest of the root system and it will come my way again, but I'll be ready.

If you can spray, do. This stuff is noxious & evil so it deserves it. I had to take out what I would assume were old, beautiful rose bushes that were choked to death over the years. Mix 2-4,D and Triclopyr with a detergent. I had another section that did not have the ornamental. I poisoned the crap out of it. In my experience, glyosphate (RU) alone wasn't as effective on BW. 2-4,D and Triclopyr were much more effective in my experience....shriveled right up. Roundup's blackberry and vine killer has triclopyr added to glyosphate.

The more you pull it the more it will spread. Use a high rate of 2-4D Amine with a non oil such as preference to help it absorb and prevent drift.

There was a bed of Ivy planted along side the church that had been there many years and was infested with Bindweed. One year a church member spent a good amount of time digging out the roots of this plant and eliminated all of the roots. Since then we have had some new growth from seeds of other plants elsewhere that has been very easy to control, but there has been no return of plants from roots of previous growth.

The only reason you would see Bindweed spread when pulling it is if you do not get the roots out. Keep in mind that birds like the berries that Bindweed produces, seeds, and they drop the seeds all over the place so even spraying plant poisons around is no guarantee that you will not se new growth. Just like many other unwanted plants that produce seeds you can see them growing where you think you have eradicated them.

kimmq is kimmsr

I am anti chemical, except for Tansy and Bindweed and these damn adorable tiny wild violets, I have all over!!! In my yard these three are all hard to kill, and listed as noxious weeds in my county. Disturbing the dirt in the top layer, and then god only knows how deep they go, can pull up dormant weed seeds and give you a new problem. I did what you're planning one year. The dirt in that part of the flower beds is more dense and gooey, though I have amended it each year. I have always felt my summer of digging and digging really hurt my soil there.