Foundations, high ground and slate

[AMc]

Not if you drown an eight-foot length of the stuff in a bucket of glyphosphate, allowing plenty of time for it to travel right down to the roots.

If I had an eight foot length that would be fine - what I have is 100s of 8" lengths spread under a thorny hedge

 

[Moo]

You don't have to give each strand its own bucket, you know.
When we were infested I spent much satisfying time untwining them and put great bunches into a bucket, to keep one another company.


ps How old are your children? Ours were quite young at the time, but graphic descriptions of the potential horror and agony seemed to convince them that the buckets were no-go areas.

 

[Moo]

ps
I didn't read your post carefully enough, and assumed that you had hundreds of eight-foot lengths.

If they're only measured in inches that makes it much easier. Just jam canes into the earth at intervals, keep an eye on the new shoots as they grow, and train them to climb up the stakes rather than into the hedging plants.
It will need a bit of patience, but it's really a very simple and satisfying process.

 

[AMc]

Genuinely appreciate the advice Moo but the tiny lengths are growing in the back of a hedge against a wall which starts about 6" off the bed. They climb up the thorny trunks of the hedge which also sprouts from below ground. The only way to get them is to reach in with gloved hands and tease them out slowly taking as much root as you can. I then just let them dry out on the paving slabs until they're dead and stick them in the brown wheelie bin for council 'hot' composting. It takes hours and you get scratched to heck.
First year we didn't realise what it was until it had infested the hedge.
Second year a concerted effort got them down but also resulted in lots of broken root fragments.
Now a continued war of attrition is the only route forward.

I once googled them and discovered the govt. advice for farmer that suggests treating it like a plague - washing machinery wheels with herbicide as they leave fields etc. It truly is the devil's plant!

 

[Moo]

Oh - poor you !

How old/precious is the hedge? I ask because, were it my problem, I'd be inclined to sacrifice the hedge, let the triffids grow, poison them, and then replace the hedge (with something less thorny?).

 

[MatthewC]

Back to topic - just an update on what I found as my "foundations". I removed the (misleading) slate and revealed a line of flat stones which sits under the stones comprising the wall.
The left hand stone is only about an inch thick at the edge, but the one beside it on the right is four or five inches thick. I think I have now answered my own question and will not excavate any further!

 

[Penners]

will not excavate any further!

Good decision. That definitely looks like a foundation layer of stones. It all looks in pretty good nick.