Weird, spiky, weed thing...

Hi!
Could anybody please tell me what this is? Even better, how to get rid of it!
My garden is riddled with it.
Many thanks in advance.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Looks like you got a bad case of Rubus Fruticosus from here

Digging the roots out works well

 

aka brambles.

 

Ok, cool. thanks for the responses. Any particular tool best for the job?
I've heard of a thing called a spade....but that seems like hard work from here (there's about 20 of these things along my garden fence!
I found one root which looked like an ugly bulb / crab and dug it up completely. Is there likely to be a network of these?
Thanks again, I am very much an amateur at this gardening malarky but me and the lad are enjoying it!

 

They do take a bit of getting out, a fork is best for it. Once they're out they are out though, not like bindweed where you have to get every bit of root out.

They burn well when they're dry

 

If they are that mature, the will have had "family" Geoff so it's not gonna be a walk in the park but it will work up a goodly appetite for tea ! Best all out though whilst you are at it,
to Gardeners Corner,
Jenny namaste

 

Lol I already found out about the need for gloves!!!
Just to add insult to injury all these brambles were completely swamped in bindweed! I'll upload a pic later to show you all what I'm up against.
Naughty negligent landlord....
Anyway, thanks again for all your hep and advice

 

I wondered about that when I mentioned Bindweed Oh dear.

 

I've just killed one with Round Up. Its looking pretty dead now (sprayed a couple of weeks ago) but I sprayed it again today as a precaution. I'll be digging it out in a few weeks.

Yes. When I lived in Sheffield, the neighbour told me that not too long before we moved there, there had been loads of brambles all along the line of houses out the back. It caught fire one year, and he said it took five fire engines to deal with it.

 

..We have cleared masses and masses of rampant very old brambles .
Covering huge areas of ground.

1. I used leather gloves and cut the long branches back, about 2ft at a time, one branch at a time, little by little, until only 3ft of the largest stems remained.
In short pieces, the flexible branches were easy to move to a bonfire where they burnt brilliantly...even when the leaves green and healthy.

2. My other half later followed behind and used a mattock to hack out the knobbly root.
At least 3ft stem is needed to pull the stump out of the ground.
Result.... Brambles all gone with no regrowth.
Most satisfying.

We tried Round up once....
It made a complete thicket of dead, dense, really lethal, really nasty, prickly, dangerous branches. All flexibility was lost.
Lethal when trying to remove everything...root and all
... never again.