I hate the previous home-owners... Bamboo, Agapanthas, stupid spikey tree thing...

[u/patgeo]

These damned root monsters the previous owners planted everywhere are destroying my sanity.

The bamboo is spreading into a garden bed over a metre away from where they planted them. The agapanthas destroyed a retaining wall and took over two full garden beds killing everything in their paths and of course are popping up everywhere. There are these two weird spikey trees that are now attacking the same retaining wall the agapanthas I removed did, they are also shooting all through the lawn and ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE HOUSE from what appears to be a shared root system between all of them.

I'm tired of digging up miles of root systems and root/bulb bound garden beds to get things other than these weeds growing...

Any tricks?

My electric cultivator helped with the agapanthas after I'd cut most out with the shovel, making it easy to shift the loose soil and get most out. But the bamboo roots and tangling it.

I'm trying to avoid salting the earth since I want to grow stuff there. But it's getting really tempting ... I've been painting the roots I cut with roundup if I don't pull them.

It just seems hopeless and my back hurts.

Edit:

The hopelessness is now more about the fight to prevent regrowth. I've ripped a lot of agapanthas and all the bamboo now.

[u/treeslip]

I'm doing a bamboo job at the moment. First we went through and cut everything down and poisoned the cut stumps. A few months later we have gone through and cut all the fresh shoots and taller bushy shoots poisoning the cut stumps. Then going through and clearing smaller shoots around native plants, poisoning the cuts and then spraying the leftover small bushy shoots. We will have to go through again to get more regrowth later on but that is the method we are using. We are using glyphosate and this method will have very little to no effect on nearby natives and doesn't stay active in the soil. I also noticed a lot less regrowth under plant canopy, so if you can shade out the area with other plants it should hopefully help reduce regrowth. I am to use as little poison as needed and spray as little as possible but unless you have heaps of time and resources this is my method. Unfortunately work contracts are usually about efficiency.