[JohnB47]

How would you deal with this?

I have a bramble that's come up right in the middle of one of my strawberry plants. It's too close to even think of digging it out, which is my normal pathetic method of 'eradication' (for eradication read 'try to dig it all up but leave a small piece of root that will come back to haunt you in a few months').

I'm happy to use glyphosate (locally, I would never spray) but wonder about the best method. I've tried it on the leaves of brambles before but it only seems to kill the leaves and/or stem local to the weedkiller.

Any tips?

[mumofstig]

keep applying it to the leaves to control it, and hopefully finish it off eventually.
If it doesn't then in winter get stuck in and dig the root out properly

[JohnB47]

Thanks mum.

I wonder if there are any good methods to use - e.g. will bruising the leaves, before applying the weedkiller,  help? Or maybe applying the glyphosate and then covering the leaves with a bag? Or cutting the stem and applying it to the top of that? Just wondering if there are good/bad ways to do this.

[slow_worm]

Cut the shoot and apply glyphosate to cut end.  It worked for me.

[8doubles]

A hypodermic and inject it should do the trick!  I think the stems are hollow.

[Lardman]

Just pull it out. Pair of GOOD gloves and pull, they have a sort of natural growing direction, pull the opposite way. You may disturb the strawbs a little but they'll soon settle back down.

Weedkiller is too much like hard work and takes far too long.

[JohnB47]

Just pull it out. Pair of GOOD gloves and pull, they have a sort of natural growing direction, pull the opposite way. You may disturb the strawbs a little but they'll soon settle back down.

Weedkiller is too much like hard work and takes far too long.

I like it! "they have a sort of natural growing direction" - yes, downward. "pull the opposite way" - upward! 

Seriously though, pulling it will only lift part of the bramble and may dislodge the strawberry. I think I'll try the slow way.

Oh. On a similar note. How come nobody has told my errant raspberry shoots, left over from the previous plotholder, that they are supposed to be shallow rooting? Every one that I try to dig out seems to have big strong roots going straight down. And no, they're not brambles.

Cheers.

[Trillium]

Normally raspberries are shallow rooted, but like any plant, if they're stressed for water, they'll go downward looking for it.