Brambles tree

[robo99]

what is the best way to keep brambles away. Is there a weed killer i can use?.

[nickdub]

Brambles have crown of roots just under the surface of the ground where all the canes grow from, lever that out with a garden fork, and you will kill the plant. Keeping the area clear then just means stopping the brambles encroaching again above ground which could be done in several ways, such as running a rotary mower round the area under the tree. Brambles do not spread underground and only occasionally propagate from seed. Mostly they spread by the tips touching the ground and layering themselves at that point.

[Plot70]

I have found that you need to dig the crown up and follow up several times as the remaining roots often sicker up again.
If you want to avoid disturbing the roots of the tree cut the larger canes off leaving a few inches and drill the pith out and fill the stem with white spirit capping it off with a bit of clay or a small stick.

[ameno]

If you want to avoid disturbing the roots of the tree cut the larger canes off leaving a few inches and drill the pith out and fill the stem with white spirit capping it off with a bit of clay or a small stick.

That's not a good idea.
One would be far better off using either glyophosate or brushwood killer.
White spirit is not readily broken down in the soil, nor is it very volatile, so will linger for a long time, unlike the above weedkillers which degrade quite quickly.
What's more, for all the talk of gyphosate and such being harmful to human health, white spirit is actually far more harmful to both human health and the environment (comparing neat white spirit to ready-to-use dilute weedkiller, that is. Obviously concentrated weedkiller is a whole other matter).

Although personally I would recommend just digging it out rather than using weedkiller, as there is too much risk of accidentally getting weedkiller on a plant you want to keep.

[Plot70]

The white spirit needs to be inside the stem so that it soaks down into the roots as they die. It does take time to evaporate but does last long enough to get into the root stock of the blackberry.
It works well on creeping thistle. I put on a small dab of white spirit with a paint brush into the centre of the thistle and a week later dug it up to find the root blackened right down to a foot below the ground. The amount was two or three drops if a dropper bottle was used.
The required quantity is very small and will be so diluted as to not cause a problem.
The blackberry roots I was dealing with were 4 inches by 6 inches of solid wood where I was able to dig them up. Some roots were an inch thick and ran for 4 feet from the stems. With these extreme root stocks it was a medical teaspoon full per treatment and the roots were dead after two or three goes over an entire growing season. It soaks down the grain of the wood and remains contained until it has done the job.

[robo99]

Thank you everyone