r/GardeningAustralia • u/patgeo • Nov 10 '24

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

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.

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7

u/patgeo Nov 10 '24

The spikey thing is a robinia of some kind.

3

u/utterly_baffledly Nov 10 '24

Oh yeah we have that bastard too. Very pretty as long as you don't want to go anywhere near it.

2

u/patgeo Nov 10 '24

I seem to have to cut it back to the stump every year to prevent it from growing nuts.

1

u/rigger80ffy Nov 11 '24

Drill a hole 100mm or so down the stump after cutting it off and use a syringe to fill it up with glyphosate. It won't come back in that spot after that.

1

u/patgeo Nov 11 '24

That's the plan, I'll go with a weaker mixture so hopefully it can get through the suckers a bit. Too strong and it just kills that spot, too weak and it doesn't kill it at all.

1

u/rigger80ffy Nov 11 '24

I've found injecting it undiluted was no problem on robinia suckers that came up amongst roses and perennials.

1

u/patgeo Nov 11 '24

On the suckers themselves undiluted is supposed to be great, but I've been told to dilute the one I put in the trunk and hopefully it kills more suckers.