Iowa gardens, no matter how well groomed, end up with bindweed, a member of the morning glory family, that has a deep root that runs sideways and sends up stems that quickly climb anything nearby on their way to more sun and world domination. If you pull up a stem it breaks underground and the remnant quickly quickly sprouts two buds that quickly make new stems. It's like the Hydra. The new stems are skinnier than the first one but they keep coming every time you pull them. If a stem finds a shrub or a fence it will twine as high as it can, spread out, shade out whatever is below, makesmall white flowers that soon turn into flame-shaped pods green packed with seeds that float on a tuft of silk  and sprout wherever the wind takes them.
A few years ago, I dug a trench through the garden to unearth one of these vines (see photos). The digging made me see that bindweed is almost designed to thwart gardening.
The seedpods are beautiful but pesky. They make lots of seeds that fly away with their silky tails.You have to pull them before they open, but every year I overlook or two until too late.
In a way, I admire bindweed for its vigor and success. But I want my garden too.
I posted this plant in the Forum category "Weeds, Pest, Plant Diseases." Please take a look and share your story of bindweed and how you cope with. That's the idea of Forum--get a topic and gather everyone's experience. Here's the threadhttp://www.yourgardenshow.com/forum/thread/1335.