White bryony?

When I bought my house there was a grapevine in the garden that produced some nice looking grapes, well when I saw what I thought was more vines that had self seeded around the place I was quite happy, the leaves looked the same. However this plant spread very rapidly and quickly killed off a few shrubs before I took action. A friend who is knowledgeable about gardening (I am not!) told me it is a plant called white bryony, it still pops up, always in hedges so it is difficult to dig the root out, which are enormouse anyway, but I am vigilant about it now and cut it down whenever I see it. I did try putting the stem bit in a plastic bag and squirting Roundup in with it , it did die but came back the next year. Anyone got any suggestions please?

 

I think you will have to persevere with the Round-Up Scoffy, some plants are tough to get rid of and it takes more than one application to kill them off. Spray the foliage of every stem that appears and the plant will eventually weaken and give up. Just be careful not to spray other plants around it.

 

I've had it for years here encroaching from the lane and orchard. I just yank it up from the roots ... yearly!

 

Hi Sheal, can't you get a Round-up or something similar now that you apply directly to the leaves which would be safer to use ?

 

Yes @Anthony Rogers, here it is.......

http://www.diy.com/rooms/roundup-ge...54_BQ&ef_id=VVhkJAAABYK3SoFY:20150517094924:s

 

Better still is to ferret around until you find the tuber and dig it out altogether. It'll be like a huge baking potato! Round-up will kill off little plants but a big, established tuber will just keep bouncing back.

 

Thanks for that, but the problem is that it always grows under a hedge so it is difficult to dig out because of the roots of the hedges. I did dig one out though, it was about the size of a big baby! It must have weighed around 10 pounds!

 

I think you need to let the plant grow well before applying the round up, the more stem and leaf that can take up the weedkiller the better.

So just temporarily can you not grow it up something to the side of the hedge, and then when there is a lot of vigorous growth, hit it with the glyphosate.

 

You could use a small sponge with Roundup, rather than paying over the odds for the gel stuff

 

What a good idea! I will try that, thank you Merleworld