Digging / pulling out large rhododendrons?

[TerryH]

Hi! My first post here and I hope someone can guide me a little bit...

 

I've been offered some work tidying up and clearing some space in a neglected / overgrown 1 acre piece of broadleaf woodland. I visited the site and found that the main problem is that probably up to a third of the land area is overrun with rhododendrons. Most of this is mature, large bushes up to 10 feet tall with stems up to 10cm thick. There are several such bushes on the site.

 

I've been reading the Forestry Commission guide "Managing and Controlling Rhododendrons" and the general advice is that herbicide is the way to go, unless the bush is small in which case you can try pulling it out. I have no license or training in use of herbicides (and I have no wish to get involved in that anyway) so I would have to decline the work on that basis.

 

However, I suggested to the customer that it may be possible to cut them and then dig or pull out the roots. I have a hand winch and straps rated to 2000Kg and there are plenty of large trees in the area that I could use as anchor points. As it is not a huge number of bushes to deal with I thought it might be a viable approach.

 

Has anyone here done this on large rhododendron bushes and was it okay or was it a complete pain in the butt !?

 

Many thanks

 

[monkeybusiness]

A decent tirfor combined with digging tools and a lot of sweat will pull roots out all day every day, but is not efficient.

 

Get a digger in if access will allow - even the smallest micro-digger will do a lot more work than an equivalently costed human being! 

[David R Barras]

1 hour ago, TerryH said:

Hi! My first post here and I hope someone can guide me a little bit...

 

I've been offered some work tidying up and clearing some space in a neglected / overgrown 1 acre piece of broadleaf woodland. I visited the site and found that the main problem is that probably up to a third of the land area is overrun with rhododendrons. Most of this is mature, large bushes up to 10 feet tall with stems up to 10cm thick. There are several such bushes on the site.

 

I've been reading the Forestry Commission guide "Managing and Controlling Rhododendrons" and the general advice is that herbicide is the way to go, unless the bush is small in which case you can try pulling it out. I have no license or training in use of herbicides (and I have no wish to get involved in that anyway) so I would have to decline the work on that basis.

 

However, I suggested to the customer that it may be possible to cut them and then dig or pull out the roots. I have a hand winch and straps rated to 2000Kg and there are plenty of large trees in the area that I could use as anchor points. As it is not a huge number of bushes to deal with I thought it might be a viable approach.

 

Has anyone here done this on large rhododendron bushes and was it okay or was it a complete pain in the butt !?

 

Many thanks

 

Whereabouts is the work? Someone on here may well be able to help with the herbicides as a good solution may be one person with a chainsaw cutting the rhododendrons and someone following on behind painting the stumps with herbicide.

[doobin]

10cm is nothing. Don't waste the customer's time messing about with a Tirfor on hundreds of stems- get a bloke in with a digger and grapple not a bucket and have done with it.

[The avantgardener]

The only way to apply herbicide on Rhododendron that size is by mist blower or cut it down burn it and knapsack treat it when it is waist height in about 18 months.

As Doobin said, get a mini digger with grapple or rake and burn it all up, spot treat the self seeded and layered shoots next year.

[TerryH]

Many thanks for the replies everyone. I will investigate the mini/micro digger with grapple option...

[tomo567]

Are they the r ponticum

[Ratman]

Spuddog0507 is a good man on Rhododendrons

[aspenarb]

There are only really two choices with rhody. Get a decent  slew with a power rake, grub the lot out and burn all arisings , cheapest way is mulch the lot and spray off the regen.

 

Bob

 

 

 

 

Or mulch and spray off regen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gray git]

Stem injection works very well on killing them standing then cut down and burn on the stumps in a years time once dryed out.
Watch the smoke on green material as it contains arsenic and can have some interesting side affects apparently.