Ian White wrote:

Re wind damage, JM wrote:


I woke up to find a hawthorn tree across my driveway. Had to shift it
without the benefit of heavy-duty gloves (emphasis on 'thorn' in the
tree's
name), as to buy some I would have had to get my car past the bloody
thing...

Good thing I've got a decent saw though. Have now bought those gloves
that
I had been meaning to get...

Glad to hear that was the worst of it. But that reminds me to ask...

I'm about to take over about a third of an acre of what's meant to be
wooded paddock, but is largely overrun at ground level by brambles. The
previous owner has managed to return some of it to grass, but has really
only, er, scratched the surface of the problem.

How can I finish the job, as permanently as possible?

Two methofs have worked for me.

(i) slash, burn, and mow, and keep mowing.

(ii) use of glyphosate at between 10 and 100 times recommended strength
sprayed on to newly sprouting stuff.

This generally kills it stone dead, but don't mess around with
'recommended' strength.

And wera protective clothing and keep pets away and shwoer immediately
afterwards etc tec.



By the time we get in there, the new spring growth will be well under
way, so the first problem will be to clear the existing growth and try
to knock the main roots back. Gardening books and websites talk about
slicing around the roots of each plant - fine in a flower bed, but I
will need quicker and more drastic methods.

Glyphosate.

Obviously it will then be a life sentence of mowing, mowing, mowing to
keep the suckers down... but that's the way of it. We'll be sure to
leave a small area to reward ourselves with blackberry pies.

Not if you use glyphosate it won't. The whole are will be bramble free
(and everything else free too).

Just reseed with meadow mix or pasture mix or let nature take its course.

Any specific brand recommendations about genuinely thornproof gloves,
strong enough to let you grab a bramble sucker and haul on it?


Go to a builders merchants.

Another option is to hire a digger, and dig the *******s up.

Then use the blade to regrade.

Or rotovate.

Seripusly, don'y mess around. Use drastic tactics. Nazi style 'final
solutions' are required for proper 'ethnic cleansing'

If chemsitry bother you, use digger to buldoze to ground level, and a
ride on mower with (essentially disposable blade in year one) to mulch
anything left to silage, and then keep mowing - high setting is fine for
pasture - at least once every couple of months. Eventually the bastarads
give up, but they will always re-seed, which is why biannual mowing of
pasture is de rigeur. Thistles and brambles and hawthorn seeds come on
on the wind and in bird****.