TerryH

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

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