Just go buy a bottle of brush killer and spray the whole bush with it. I finally killed a patch of blackberries with Bayer brush killer last year. The bush looks fine for a couple of days and then a little sick. In three weeks it will be nothing more than a clump of dried twigs.

What you have there is certainly a wild species rose and if you like the looks but not the size it can be controlled with good pruning. I have found with my kids as well as the neighbor kids that they tend to stay out of roses after getting pricked once.

Lance

Just keep chopping away at it & protect yourself from the thorns. When you eventually get to the stubs, wet the soil & go at it with a shovel & fork. You'll have to check next spring for regrowing stems. There is no easy fix. Look on it as an ongoing process. Multiflora is very hard to get rid of. Good luck.

The first time you prune a rose like that if you leave it alone afterwards there will indeed be a vigorous new flush of growth as the bush tries to reestablish itself. This is where you need to be persistent. lydia s is right. If you keep at it you will get rid of it all, but you will need to be persistent.

It will be easier to deal with once you've removed the original crown of the shrub. Then you will have to watch for new shoots coming up from the roots, but as you keep at it they will also abate.

Just remind yourself not to plant spearmint in the ground. It's worse! :-)

There are entire sections of websites devoted to methods of killing rosa multiflora. It's not easy.

We pulled ours out of the ground with a pickup truck. Seriously. After that I diligently sprayed every shoot that magically appeared.

I know a farmer who swears by the log-splitter method (driven down into the base of the plant).

is it really the children you are worried about or yourself? I would say more harm could come from the trees, when they fall out and brake their limbs. The children will remember if they get stuck just once, whereas an adult will keep getting stuck and want to destroy the thing that bit them!

Consider what Paparoseman said. You can keep it under control, and the kids will know they can get stuck if they go in the bush.

That said, I ridded our property of a wild rose which was growing up inside some lilacs and spreading just everywhere. I dug down and got roots anywhere it popped up, even little sprigs. Nothing was too small for my attention. I worked on it periodically spring and summer over two years, and finally it was gone. Slow and steady wins the race. LOL!

I have never tried to get rid of wild roses, but this method works wonders on mulberry trees that usually just sprout new sprouts when cut. After I cut it off at the ground, I dribble full-strength Roundup on the freshly-cut stump. Quick, easy, inexpensive because you use very little of the chemical. You might have to do it more than once with wild roses - like I said I never have tried to kill them.

I was told that a can of motor oil will kill anything.

I was told that a can of motor oil will kill anything.

Sorry, but not good for the soil, and illegal in many areas.

Yes, motor oil will kill just about everything, and that's why it's very often (usually?) illegal to dump it on the ground like that.

Don't use motor oil to do that.

Buy an plane ticket and send it to me. I KILL EVERYTHING!!! How about Roundup?

Mix up approx. 1 gal of round up in a old bucket.place the ends of a branch or two in the solution.your problems will be solved in a few days.make sure you stash the solution away from curious kids and pets.the bush will absorb the roundup down to its roots,and it will soon be history or compost.

willync7

Fall in love with it and it will die.
Actually it took me several years to kill
one. I pruned it to the ground and dug it up.
It came back every year. I finally had to use gasoline
on it.

John

I have rid my yard of blackberry bushes, I think they are related with cutting them to the ground and painting them with round up brush killer. It only took one or twice and they were gone but small ones back the next year and I simply repeated the process.

Karyn

Thanks for all the suggestions! I have cut a lot of them back. Tomorrow I am going to dig the stump out.

I didn't know Roundup works like that, that it goes into the live part of the plants and get into their system. I will try Roundup too when they come back.

(The children that I am concerned with are not my children. There are / will be children from my Church, so they will not be familiar with the rose in that area. It would be bad if each one had to be bitten at least once).

I'd rather have children playing around wild roses than in an area contaminated with herbicides. Using Roundup in a play-area is simply a terrible idea in my opinion, and presents a much greater health risk than getting pricked by a thorn.

You might want to rethink this.

Bill

I don't know how applicable this is to your situation but instead of Round Up we use vinegar to kill weeds. On the sidewalk and in areas where there is landscape rock etc., It works great. Might be interesting to pour a bottle of vinegar around the roots and see what happens.

Kate

Vinegar will temporarily acidify the soil in the immediate vicinity, but that will later wear off (months or years later, depending on how rainy & warm the climate is). It might work.

I like it a lot as a weed killer (you can also add salt and some dish soap if desired). It stinks only briefly and does not hurt my cats who are into positively everything in the garden.

Kate

I'm currently waging war on all the multiflora on our property.

Phase 1: Cut it out with a brush cutter.

Phase 2: Dig out the root if it's small enough.

Phase 3: Check back and dig out anything else that appears.

Phase 4: Repeat Phases 1-3 as the plant gets successively smaller.

Phase 5: Test the pH and add hydrated lime as necessary.

I've been doing this for 6-8 months and the smaller bushes have disappeared. The huge growths take longer to eradicate. On my property the multiflora laughs at brush killer and at round-up. I will try white vinegar and see what that does -- I know it works on morning glory and thistle...

Wish me luck! I have promised myself a rose garden when all the multiflora is gone....

ok, chop chop chop, chop chop chop. I felt powerful and a little evil. I do see some success although I think the multiflora will laugh at me next year (or maybe sooner).

But it is not too bad. After two days of treatment, it is almost gone from SIGHT. I know it will come back, but we have to handle weeds every year anyway, so if it means I need to cut them 2 or 3 times each year, that sounds ok with me.

With some weeds, I read that if you continue to cut them off when they just come out, eventually the root will be depleted of food and die. I don't know if that is going to be the same with multiflora. I certainly hope so.

Cut them off at the base as close to the ground and paint them right away with a real strong weed killer. Right away within minutes it will start healing. It will never grow back... It is not a wild rose bush, it is a weed or tree weed..