Best way of killing brambles and holly?

[CaravaggioLover]

Our NDN has a huge amount of ivy, brambles, thorns and weeds growing around wild trees well into our garden. Can anyone advise me about the quickest/most powerful weedkiller please? NDN is happy for me to zap away. TIA.

Avoid weed killer- it’s so harmful to insects. Can you just get a good secateurs and cut them back?

Believe me I have been at it with the secateurs for many hours but only just beginning to touch it. It's too much!

Loppers are better than secateurs IME for making an impact on a lot of bramble. Good rawhide 'rigger' gloves essential for removing the damned stuff, whether it's alive or dead.

Ivy - snip as low down near the root as you can, then leave it to die. It will relax its grip and be easier to pull off whatever it's clinging to.

You will then get regrowth ... tbh I'd be inclined to paint that with glyphosate to try to kill the roots.

Do you really want to get rid of holly, or did you mean thorns in general? Holly is a really beautiful native tree.

Don’t go for weed killer, among other things it poisons the insects we rely on to
Pollinate food.

I got rid if a massive bramble patch with loppers, then digging up the roots. It didn’t take long.

Brambles really don't seem to care about glyphosate. You need to get in there and dig the roots out.

Ivy is pretty easy to tear up, just get your gloves on and have at it.

Please don't use glyphosate, it doesn't really kill the worst weeds and it kills insects, and the birds and mammals that eat them.

You can then put cardboard down to suppress new growth while you plan new planting.

If you must use weedkiller (we try not to but I'm fighting large areas of bramble, nettle, sycamore 'seedlings' etc), try SBK . And my dad is in the 3rd year of trying to get rid of the bloody brambles

We've managed to kill a willow with it too, which was a bonus (intentional, was shading out the house and much of the garden)

Flowing with interest as I've finally got round to ripping out the brambles that have over taken the bottom of my garden.
I cant get to the roots. They are in ndn garden but behind a shed so not accessible.
Any ideas?

Weed killer does not kill insects. Pesticides do / weed killer doesn't - the clue is in the name.

Your best bet is SBK (Brushwood killer) painted onto the leaves. Holly would be difficult to kill, because the leaves are so shiny and therefore the weed killer would tend not to be absorbed. I can see the need to kill / control brambles with weedkiller. Holly is easier to cut down like any other tree.

Weed killer does not kill insects. Pesticides do / weed killer doesn't - the clue is in the name. To be pedantic, counter intuitive as it seems, "pesticide" includes weedkiller.

We get holly all over the garden, I was hoping for some words of wisdom 😔

The ivy is just taking persistence but holly just seems to appear all over the place.

@MereDintofPandiculation not in common British English usage. I am aware that Wikipedia contains an EPA citation that makes this definitional link but I don't believe the OED does.

I am aware that Wikipedia contains an EPA citation that makes this definitional link Does it? I didn't look at wikipedia. It's always seemed perverse to me that pesticides include weedkillers, but it's as well to be aware when reading technical stuff.