Very Overgrown Honeysuckle?

I need some advice as we recently moved into a house which backs onto a railway line. The bottom of the garden was very overgrown with shrubs and bushes and we have just started to clear it. We have found a chainlink fence which is completely entwined with this honeysuckle bush and also some bindweed. We have cut as much of it as we can but as we can't get access onto the railtrack land we can't dig it out and I wanted to know if we could kill the plant of some other way. Also once we have done that I would like to screen off the chainlink fence as we had a snake come into the garden last summer and as I have small children I don't want that happening again. Any advice gratefully received!!

 

Im a bit confused. Why do you want rid of the honeysuckle?

 

I agree with mrs cloudy try to keep the honeysuckle, i have one in my garden and when its flowering it smells great on an evening

 

Honeysuckle can be a bit rampant, but if it's the bind weed you're trying to get rid of spray it with glyphosate before the honeysuckle starts to re-shoot and with luck you'll kill one and save the other, or if you want rid of both wait till the honeysuckle starts to shoot and then spray.
Don't worry about the snake it's probably in more danger from your kids than they are from it unless you know that they are allergic to snake venom. Only the adder is poisonous(only mildly so) which has yellow diamonds on it's back and is not very aggresive. Smooth snakes are very rare and like grass snakes are harmless or it's more likely to be a slow worm which is really a lizard and also harmless.

 

Are you sure its not a slow worm? 1st pic

The only snake in these isles I think is the adder below

Slow worms are really legless lizards & do no harm - they do eat garden pests though. Here's grass snake
(Aaw cute!)

[ April 08, 2005, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Bayleaf ]

 

More likely to be a grass snake down there i think. If it is an adder tho, run away :eek: . Im from the Highlands where you are more likely to find adders and ive only ever seen two in my life. I was always told never to touch them if i found one and that they were most dangerous in spring when they are still sluggish and slow. By summer they will wiggle off as fast as they can to avoid danger. I got a huge telling off when i was about 11 for hitting one on the head with my frogspawn collecting jar to see what it would do. It hissed very impressively then went down a hole. :D

 

Snake get such bad press! The three that live in the British Isles really are harmless, honestly,a wasp or bee is more likely to sting and more venomous than our little adder.