Help to prevent roots of old plant regrowing

babybunny

I have been lurking on the greenfingered threads for a while and was wondering if any of you kind people could give me some advice.

I am a complete newbie to gardening, so apologies in advance for any daft questions!

We have been trying to remove a big plant/shrub thing which grows against our garage in a flowerbed (about 1 metre wide by 4 metres long). I don't know what it is, but it hasn't flowered in the two years we have owned the house (apparantly it should flower), it is rotting in places and it is in the prime sunny spot of the garden so we decided it had to go so we could plant something else.

We have dug most of the thing out over several weekends, but its roots seem to cover the entire garden including under our patio and there is no way we can dig it out roots and all. So we have had to snip some of the roots as deep down as we could go (at least a foot deep).

In our haste, we have already bought some new plants to go in the flowerbed, so would rather not wait too long before planting these.

So my daft questions are:
1) Will these roots grow back, even when buried under a foot of top soil?
2) Should we lay down some kind of weed/root preventing covering material stuff (sorry, not sure what it is called!) and make holes in it to plant our new plants?
3) Is there anything else we can do to stop the roots regrowing?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

a1cat

babybunny wrote: »

I have been lurking on the greenfingered threads for a while and was wondering if any of you kind people could give me some advice.

I am a complete newbie to gardening, so apologies in advance for any daft questions!

We have been trying to remove a big plant/shrub thing which grows against our garage in a flowerbed (about 1 metre wide by 4 metres long). I don't know what it is, but it hasn't flowered in the two years we have owned the house (apparantly it should flower), it is rotting in places and it is in the prime sunny spot of the garden so we decided it had to go so we could plant something else.

We have dug most of the thing out over several weekends, but its roots seem to cover the entire garden including under our patio and there is no way we can dig it out roots and all. So we have had to snip some of the roots as deep down as we could go (at least a foot deep).

In our haste, we have already bought some new plants to go in the flowerbed, so would rather not wait too long before planting these.

So my daft questions are:
1) Will these roots grow back, even when buried under a foot of top soil?
2) Should we lay down some kind of weed/root preventing covering material stuff (sorry, not sure what it is called!) and make holes in it to plant our new plants?
3) Is there anything else we can do to stop the roots regrowing?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

Depends what it is!

Yes it could grow back from bits of roots.

Buy some glyphosate and paint it on anything that appears - that'll kill pretty much anything.

babybunny

I thought the type of plant might make a difference!

Here is a photo of some regrowth elsewhere in the garden.

a1cat

Not exactly sure what that is but it is viney & vigorous, that's for sure, paint the old glyphosate on the leaves & shoots as they reappear anhd you will kill it.

babybunny wrote: »

I thought the type of plant might make a difference!

Here is a photo of some regrowth elsewhere in the garden.

babybunny

a1cat wrote: »

Not exactly sure what that is but it is viney & vigorous, that's for sure, paint the old glyphosate on the leaves & shoots as they reappear anhd you will kill it.

Thanks! If I paint it with the glyphosate, will that kill everything else planted nearly, or just kill the plant that I paint?

a1cat

Just the one painted

a1cat

Looks like wisteria family btw

babybunny

a1cat wrote: »

Just the one painted

Phew! That's a relief!

I will try the painting and keep persisting with any regrowth.

Many thanks!

mclmsn

a1cat wrote: »

Looks like wisteria family btw

I'm thinking the same, I removed one from my garden last year, I dug down to around 2 feet and hacked away at the main root pulling up what I could and nothing so far has re-appeared, apart from the creeping jenny that seems to be growing everywhere!

gardenroute

a1cat wrote: »

Looks like wisteria family btw

a pea?

Babybunny - it depends what the plant is - its probably a bit late to take a photo now. I guess the best thing would be to plant it up and then spray any regrowth from the old plant.

a1cat