Folks I'm in deep trouble here. A reasonably old, ~40 years, hawthorn tree next to my yard died about a year ago, at least the main stem died. That tree's entire root system has exploded in root sprouts, there are more than 300 sprouts in a 40' radius around that tree. My son gave up counting at 300 there are more. They have taken over the lawn and the garden. Sprouts that we ignored grew to over 5' tall and lethally armed in just one season. Short of removing the top foot of soil from this entire area is there any way to kill this thing?
Instead of removing the top foot of soil from the entire area it would be much easier just to cut the shoots to the ground as soon as they appear. Since the tree that fed the roots is dead, the roots will soon die too if the new shoots will stop feeding them as well.
If you can run a lawnmower over the area, that would be an easy way to control the growth of the shoots until the roots die.
