Sunday 18th March

These leaves and flowers are on our false blackcurrant bush. Or should I be calling it *faux* blackcurrant these days? ;-)
My feelings towards the bush are rather ambivalent. It's quite pretty a couple of times a year, and the leaves are looking lovely just now but it was a rescue plant from someone else's garden and what we didn't realise at the time was that the soil ball round it also contained bindweed.
The bindweed took hold and has spread all over the place. It's virtually impossible to eradicate. The most we can do is make sure that it doesn't strangle everything else when it gets going in the summer.

[Jennifer C]

Bummer about the bindweed, how unfortunate
Lester will be busy trying to keep it under control!

[Anna]

Lovely shot!! great background!! and i love the cool focus on the blackcurrant new leaves!! bet it smells lovely already!!!)))))

[Milanie]

What a pretty leaf it has - your picture is lovely. And I gather from the above comment that it has a nice smell. That's a bonus.

[Brian Baptie]

Gardening 101, use lots of Roundup. I've used it for years and it eradicates everything.

[Jean Tookey]

A pretty picture. Love the colour and focus. Bind weed is a real pain.

[Susan Bell]

Lovely detail and shallow DOF. The bindweed is a pain, but as @bdb3471 says - Roundup will get rid of it. Any weedkiller with glyphosate is fine. You can paint it onto leaves between other plants. Sound fiddly, but the stuff is absorbed by the leaves and taken down to kill the roots, so worthwhile taking some time over it. Works best if you wait until there is a reasonable amount of leaf to absorb the chemical. Once dry it it completely safe and it is neutralised by going onto soil, so won't spread to kill other things.
I was at Kew a few years ago and they had put in canes into their rhododendrons to grow the bindweed up! Once there was a good amount of growth they put on woollen gloves over rubber ones, dip their hands into the weedkiller and rub it directly onto the leaves. Apparently it will eliminate even a pretty severe infestation.

[ruthspin]

Ooh that stuff really is a bind to get rid of. Beautiful shot though, I really like the depth to the picture.

[CHARLES MALLIA]

nice spring is beautiful

[Hamble]

Lovely depth of field. Bindweed! Keep on top of it and by the third year you'll win!

[Corine Wernsen]

Hello spring!!! Nice photo!!!

[Jim]

very delicate and pretty

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

Thank you, everyone :-)
@bdb3471 @bigsusan55 Thank you very much to both of you for the info. We'll have to give it a go, the expletive-deleted stuff's getting everywhere.

[Jen Hudson]

You can also get the stuff in a push up stick to rub on to make it easy inbetween plants. Nice focus and great to see those buds.

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

@jennywren Thank you, Jen. :-) I'll look out for the stick. It sounds like a good way of applying the weedkiller.

[Mhel]

Fantastic focus and dof.

[Nat]

Lovely. I like the wide screen crop, really draw you along the branch.

[Netkonnexion]

Wonderful!

[Glendq]

i so like the colours and composition of this photo