Question
I've got a line of invasive shrubs along the side of my driveway. I cut them down and planted some rugosa roses about 1.5 feet away. However, the invasive shrubs send up shoots every year and very quickly they are out of control. At the root, the shrub is made up of a cluster of small-ish trunks about an inch in diameter. The roots are deeper than we can dig up.  Thanks for your help,  Elizabeth

Answer
Hello Elizabeth

If you really want to get rid of these shrubs once and for all and you can't dig out the roots, the only thing you can do is kill them off with a proprietary root killer, which you can get from your local garden center.  Applied as soon as you have cut down the shrubs, this will kill the roots without affecting the soil or damaging other plants.  Be sure to follow the instructions on the pack carefully.

By the way - Rugosa is also a suckering plant and spreads rapidly during the growing season - watch out for suckers in the lawn.  It can be controlled to a point by regularly mowing the grass, but I think you may be swapping one problem for another!

Gill