Garden Quote

Mutton_Geoff

askeym said:

Just be careful with Roundup, there's legal cases going on in the US regarding it giving people cancer.

I'd be careful with any glyphosate weedkiller (which most of them are since Roundup's parent company patent on glyphosate expired in 2000). It's just Monsanto copped the legal cases because of their behaviour (which new owner Bayer settled). The UK/Europe often lags behind the USA and it wouldn't surprise me if glyphosate products soon get banned in the same way that Bug Clear etc disappeared from our shelves over the last 10-20 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)

Danny30

So what is effective to kill brambles to the roots and safe to use? Getting a bit worried now. 

tonyh66

SBK will do brambles, I wouldn't worry about glyphosate weedkillers I have been using concentrated for years and haven't died yet, just be sensible.

Danny30

SBK doesn't contain glysophate though. Does that not matter? 

Davesnave

Oh for goodness sake! Glyphosate is about as big a cancer risk as eating grilled bacon, but this is the internet where some people bring a Daily Star ambience to every thread they visit. Just remember much of the food you buy was produced with the help of glyphosate somewhere along the way....or you can pay more and go organic.

There is a slightly better product for dealing with brambles called Grazon Pro, which as its name implies, is a professional selective weedkiller. You are not supposed to use it without being trained and licenced, but no one asks me for proof of my certification when I buy it on the internet.

My personal experience of clearing bramble years ago using glyphosate, was that compete eradication took over 2 years. It would have been beneficial to use a digger, if I'd had one

-taff

My personal experience of getting rid of brambles was to dig them up. They weren't that far away from the surface [ the roots], I had a patch bigger than your cleared in a couple of weeks of not much effort [but many scratches]. It took longer waiting for themt o dry before I could burn them. Long handled loppers or shears, trace each stem back as far as you can with the handles, chop and hold it, then transfer to a pile.

Bogwoppitt

Totally agree with Taff here. I had an overgrown garden (and I mean overgrown!) and we took a few days off and cleared it all with loppers and a combo of burning in a brazier and the works van down the tip.
Quite nice late evening to sit round the brazier with a few beers as well.
I think prices vary massively dependent on where you are in the UK to be honest. Maybe it's worth breaking the job down and either doing the weeds yourself or getting a clearance specialist to come and just empty the garden so you have a blank canvas.
Having said that, I left my garden for 7 years because I have a curtain twitcher next door who was trespassing into my garden on an almost daily basis even when told not to, so I padlocked it and left it.
I've just dealt with it as the brambles were over 8 foot high in places and wall to wall. I'd say the garden was at least 55 foot, based on 9 and a half bays of fence panels. I did get an odd job man in, wouldn't recommend it or do it again. 
Wanted £1224 all in and quoted for FULL garden clearance, including three day's work and a skip and £92 permit. Didn't use a skip, turned out he had his own high sided trailer all along. I asked him to knock the vat off, he agreed. He wanted £300 deposit "to secure the date". So I worked it out to be £12240.00 - £244.80 = £979.20. Minus the £300 left £679.20 outstanding. Or so I thought.
He rocked up on the Monday and pretty much cleared the lot, leaving the tiniest amount growing up one panel. In hindsight it was probably so that it gave him an excuse to charge for 3 days. 
He texted that evening to say he would be back Wednesday (so already dropped a day then!) and then gave the pushy sell, wanting to charge extra for concrete removal and rotovating and removal of bramble roots, and quoted £295 for that. 
The concrete he claimed was rotten - really, I thought it wasn't biodegradable, but hey ho! was a concrete base (no steel in it) which I didn't really want removing anyway. He'd left slabs and the concrete residue from old posts piled up but had not taken them when he did the brambles, presumably to make it appear like more work needed doing. 
On the Wednesday if he was in the garden a couple of hours I'd be surprised. I repeatedly texted asking for a final figure, even though I knew what it was. I got no reply, so I dug out the email, broke it down for him and emailed back to say I'd deposited £680.00 in his bank account. He texted me immediately, telling me that allegedly we'd agreed a price of £1020 and so no, I owed him £40 extra. I just paid it, I didn't want to argue.
Cut a long story short, he got more and more pushy and quoted for concrete posts, gravel boards and fence panels, then threw in rotovating, seeding and prepping when it wasn't wanted to bump up the price to 2k, then got annoyed when I asked if he could revise the price to exclude prepping and seeding and did the "I'm doing you a favour, I charge £220 a bay for concrete posts etc."
I saw my backside at his attitude and messaged a local firm who specialise in fencing and was shocked when they quoted £1200.00 all in, including VAT for 10 bays of 6 foot concrete posts, panels and gravel boards including removal and disposal of old fencing. 
So in hindsight it does pay to get quotes and also to get recommendations too!

getmore4less

I think I would go with the others suggestions and make it a longer term project.
Brambles are a nightmare because they will root from anything that touches the ground and come back from anything left.
You cannot get them all in one go( I did some raised beds and still get the odd bit coming back that I missed)

The place looks a lot worse than it probably is once cleared and the shrubs cut back you will be surprised how much better it will look in a short time.

One strategy as others have suggested is clear to the ground  of whats there,  just cutting it back or digging out a bit, let it dry a then  tip it or burn it.

Probably about a days work for that initial hack to the ground, with a sunny spell coming it will dry out fairly quickly
   
Then as stuff  grows back,  look to dig  out and/or  attack with the chemicals.
You might have some decent plants around, I think I see pots and a border, you get a chance to save them if you don't blanket spray first.

The best tool you can buy for a project like this is a mattock and if you want to start on the hard landscaping a pick.
Examples on this tool station link
https://www.toolstation.com/search?q=mattock

You can try the dig out on the first pass but expect to get cut up unless you have good gloves(gauntlets), to pull stuff up loosen the soil around  the roots with the mattock first


That initial clear will give you a better idea of what state the boundaries are in and hatch a plan to rectify those.

Check out your local feeecycle there are materials around that people may take off your hands for their own projects reducing what needs to be paid to dispose.
Our local tips charge for building/garden materials now any concrete, wood,  stones and large diameter tree bits.