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Can I rotovate after killing brambles

crunchie1967crunchie1967 Posts: 5
in Problem solving
Hello.

I am clearing an area of brambles at the bottom of my garden of about 80 square metres. I have treated the area twice with glyphosate and can't see any new growth after 3 weeks. 

I have read that you shouldn't rotovate brambles as this creates many new roots, but is it ok to do it now that I have (hopefully) killed the roots? I hope to have a meadow area once it is cleared.

Any help much appreciated.

Colin

Posts

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Hi @crunchie1967 - I'm not sure I'd risk it after that length of time, but if you feel you've definitely killed everything..... :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    I would dig it over, pulling out everything I could find.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited August 2021
    For a meadow, yearly cutting will keep down any regrowth of the brambles.  This is what they do on road verges.  It would have worked without the glyphosate!

    For a wild flower meadow, it is recommended that you strip off the top layer of fertile soil.

    In the wooded end of my garden, I removed the understorey of brambles by pulling and regular mowing.  If I had used a weedkiller I would not now have a spring display of bluebells.  What, that is worthwhile, might you have lost?
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    If there were bluebells and they had died down and gone dormant before the weedkiller was applied, I'd expect them to bounce back like nothing had happened (but rotovating deep enough will chop them up and make lots of little ones).
    I think I'd leave the brambles a good while longer before declaring them dead.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited August 2021
    Jenny:  "If".

    I once discussed with the RHS problems desk at the Chelsea Flower Show, how to eradicate stichwort from bluebells. They asked: lesser or greater?  Prevaricating.  They had no ideas, so I put a few of my ideas past them.  

    One included spraying selective lawn weedkiller that would kill the stitchwort but not a monocot.  They (only one guy really) said  that the weedkiller might pass down the hole left by the flower stalk and enter the top of the bullb.  Bullsh*t. but I decided not to take the risk.  But worth the poster taking on-board.

    In the end I decided to mow once a year after the bluebells has died away.  Hard work, on a slope, with lots of dried leaves to chew up, uusually in hot, humid conditions, with clegs and sweat-flies about. 

    It worked.  Now I hand-pull the remaining stitchwort in about July.  A little is no problem, but a lot takes away the over-all blueness that is bluebells.  Some years their flowering times do not clash.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    I've found nothing that reliably and completely gets rid of bluebells (the spanish ones anyway - I've never had native english bluebells  in the garden). And yes I have tried glyphosate on ones that were coming up between paving slabs. They ignored it and still come up every spring, but now I just chop them off as soon as they put in an appearance and repeat every couple of weeks until they stop trying to regrow. Until the next year.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,355
    edited August 2021
    I'm with @Fairygirl on this one. I'm not convinced 3 weeks is long enough to declare it all dead - brambles are pretty tenacious as they root anywhere they touch the ground and I always seem to have lots of seedlings as well. 

    Assuming you now have what appears to be a jungle of dead brambles, I'd be tempted to strim* or mow everything back to the ground now and then give it another month or so to see if you get any signs of regrowth.  

    If there's just a bit here and there I'd dig it out.

    What sort of meadow are you aiming for? Are you sowing or planting? Do you actually need to rotovate?

    Edited to add: *When I say 'strim' a proper bladed brush cutter would be the tool for the job! You can probably hire one if you don't own one.
    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
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