[Closed] Is there anything that actually gets rid of brambles? Gardentrackworld

We bought a place with a lot of brambles. A heck of a lot. It's taken a while but they are getting under control. The best way seems to be to dig them. You need to get as much of the root as possible. Take care here rather then just pulling. A pick-mattock is an excellent tool for this. You always miss a few bits and it'll grow from a bit of root so a second (and third) going over is needed. It's hard work but quite satisfying when you get an area clear.

I use one of these at work hth

It took me about 3 years. With the original plant, and every time I saw a new shoot, I gripped it with pliers and pulled out the root. I didn't dig, as that cuts the root into many bits, all of which grow, although it may be faster to dig it and then pull out all the new shoots. If you can stop it making leaves, it can't make food and eventually runs out of what's stored in the root.

Goat?

Systemic weedkiller should work, surely? Glyphosphate is absorbed through leaves and gets distributed around the whole plant and kills it. Not nice to breathe in, and not nice on your food but it breaks down in the soil very quickly so won't poison anything.

I know you don't want to burn neighbour's fence but....flamethrower.

A before and after from one of my bits (about 3% of the brambles!)

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This is pretty much the only flat bit so we've wanted it to be lawn. We are leaving quite a bit wild, although not much of it brambles hopefully

Goat?

Goats are quite fussy. While they will eat pretty much anything they'll eat most other things before they eat the brambles, and even then they'll nibble the new growth not the thick nasty stuff you really want rid of.

Systemic weedkiller should work, surely? Glyphosphate is absorbed through leaves and gets distributed around the whole plant and kills it. Not nice to breathe in, and not nice on your food but it breaks down in the soil very quickly so won’t poison anything.

I'd have thought so. Weedol certainly works on smaller bramble 'infestations'.

Try Elbow grease 👍

Seriously,

moved into new house in winter 2017 and discovered mares tail in summer.
Never experienced this tenacious weed before.

Lots of gardeners world type research advising people to ‘move house’ as you will never get rid of it.

Bollox to that, I hand dug the top 12 inch of soil out, removed 25 ton.

that was 2 years ago, no mare tail since (touch wood)

We removed a massive patch 3 years ago. Got as much root out as possible. They still grow back now, although eady to week out from time to time.

If I was doing it again I'd glyphosate the shit out of them and be done with it.

Digging up the root is the cheapest, most effective and best exercise!

Ammonium Sulphamate will get rid of it. It's no longer allowed to be sold as a herbicide, but is still available as a compost accelerator

https://www.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/1989/ammonium-sulphamate-weed-killer-banned/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lancelot-Mistral-Ammonium-Sulphamate-1Kg/dp/B004MMOEH2

To quote the manufacturers

Ammonium Sulphamate was once considered to be particularly useful in controlling tough woody weeds, tree stumps and brambles. However in 2008 the EU removed its approval as a registered herbicide and therefore it can no longer be advertised or sold explicitly for this purpose. We therefore do not sell ammonium sulphamate for this purpose. Its availability and use as a compost accelerator is unaffected by the EUs pesticide legislation

My sawtooth bramble, that I rather wanted to retain, has been over run by horse tail and died. The horse tail is now taking on the stinging nettles in a battle of attrition which is like the horticultural version of the Western front in ww1.

I can sell you some of that if you like?

We had mares tail, no need to dig out 25t of topsoil! Let it grow a bit, glyphosphate, hoe / till in whatevers left. Presumably its all connected as once the roundup 360 went on it sorted it in our garden and our neighbours.

We also have brambles, but they're trained up canes among the fruit bushes to give us blackberries 😋.

Cheers for the answers, i would love to burn the hell out the lot, even if it grew back it would be so satisfying!
At the minute digging it out makes most sense. Going to have to do it in sections though otherwise neighbours fence gets under mined and the post footings look bodged to say the least!

So heavy weed killers won’t stop stuff growing long term then? I think I could fence the area off enough to keep the dogs out

Cut them back to the ground and allow them to reshoot, then when theres around a dozen or so new leaves treat them with SBK.

So heavy weed killers won’t stop stuff growing long term then?

Glyphosate ('Roundup') will - Takes a few weeks to work and may need a couple of goes.

Glyphosate is the thing if you wait for fresh green growth, it will kill it back to the roots but occasionally a strong infestation has a seriously woody root stock which can be controlled as soon as new shoots appear.

Any way you can get your bike up there? If so, ride around for a bit wearing a t-shirt and you'll find that all the brambles will wrap themselves round the crook of your elbows. It's almost magical

Best way to get rid of mares tail is to strim it down and turf over it, doesn't do well with competition.

Brambles in my garden tackled with a mixture of glyphosate and a spade.

Brambles are pretty easy to get rid of, you just trace each shoot back to the root cluster and dig that out. The root clusters can be anything from the size of an onion to more like a melon depending on how old / big the bramble is.

No need for weed killers.

What is wrong with a pig?
They will root up and turn over the soil.
Makes a hell of a mess but they will eat everything they dig up.
Then when its/their work is done its bbq rib time.

No one has mentioned Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Our previous garden had approximately half an acre of them, I cut them down with a ride on mower and then kept mowing every week they eventually disappeared to be replaced by grass naturally.

We are 6 years into owning our ex jungle, complete with outrageous amounts of bramble, ground alder....

It's been hours of digging the things up, every week, week in, week out through the growing season.
The biggest thing is getting them small and early - don't let them flower.
Last year I relented and we had a nuclear weed kill for some areas.

Each year there are fewer and fewer weeds - this spring is looking really good compared to previous years.

We are now on a 5 mins a day of effort = no weeds.

If you can actually get hold of ammonium sulfamate legally, it's brilliant stuff. One of the few compunds to get rid of Japanese Knotweed too.

EU withdrawal was something to do with a lack of animal testing - the decision was that to test it further would have caused unneccessary animal cruelty but one nation refused to ratify it. Can't remember the details. We used it loads in the lab, it was a common laboratory reagent and it's also used in flame-retardant materials.

We get them from land behind our house. I go over with the hedge trimmer and the extendable chainsaw and cut back. Winning now, as I've just slashed the lot back. Wear good trousers though. My arms and hands were cut to bits.

I still will need to go over the fence, but I've kicked it's ass now.

If it is anything like Bamboo then think of ot like a war. You are going to lose occasionally, but keep going long enough and with enough logistics and brute force you will win. But it will take a long time. The 'war' against the bamboo is entering its 6th year. At some point, I'm going to have to attack the main plant, but that is in the neighbours garden and the better half has banned me from digging out their plant!

Ok a proper reply from me now, echoing some of the above

If you have a strimmer/brushcutters that uses cord, don’t bother as you’ll be getting through cord very quickly, only use a metal bladed head (careful!)

If you have a hedge trimmer use that, cut it all up and down to ground level

Use a fork to get the main stem/rootball out

It will start to grow back, so when you see it pop up above the surface just tease out with a fork, the amount of regrow the will reduce over time

Use a small pin (after you’ve heated it up to kill any nasties) to dig out all the thorns from your hands/arms

If you can actually get hold of ammonium sulfamate legally

It's on amazon, as I said earlier. Easy to get hold off. Just don't use it as weed killer, as that would be naughty

one nation refused to ratify it.

Ireland didn't test it on dogs...

moved into new house in winter 2017 and discovered mares tail in summer.
Never experienced this tenacious weed before.

Really? It’s been around since the Cretaceous, or maybe the Jurassic, can’t remember for sure, but literally millennia. It’s nowhere near as intrusive as Himalayan Balsam or Japanese Knotweed.
Or Giant Hogweed, for that matter, and that’s something you really, really don’t want turning up in your garden - that will require that you dust off and nuke from space!