I assume that you don't want to use an herbicide. If there is 1 main stock you can screw a Brass Screw from the hardware store into the base of it. Copper is toxic to plants & it will slowly kill it.

OK I'll give it a try! Thanks :-)

At our old house, we had a HUGE rose bush (taller that my hubby). I cut alot of it out. I hated that thing. We eventually spray it with plant killer, numerous times to kill it (in a 2 week period) After it was dead, we had to pull it out with my husbands truck, since the roots we so deep, digging was just not going to work. Pulling with the truck also worked good with the shrubs we wanted to get rid of at that house and the one we are at now. They are out in like 10 secs.

I like Free's suggestion, less toxic...

It's how I got rid a magnolia sapling. (I'm allergic.) It snuck me around the "permit to remove a live tree" fee; the 10 foot tall tree just died. ;) It took all summer.

very interesting...... if heavy metas kill plants, why can't they harm our kids too?? I'll try that free... one time... really great tip..

Challenger- I'm not sure if copper harms kids, I'll have to look into it. I have a saltwater aquarium, and it's safe to treat the fish with it- it works great for many fish diseases, but coral and invertibrates (crabs, shrimp, snails, starfish, ect.) will die from it.
I didn't know it killed plants too.
I'm definately going to try to find out...

I mean heavy metals in general.. aluminum, mercury, lead.... etc the usual suspects

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~toxmetal/TXQAcu.shtml
Small amount of copper are good, needed even. But high levels of copper can be toxic. The brass screw ODs the plant. Copper wire wrapped around pipes prevents root intrusion because the plant avoids the overdose.

ohhhhhhh interesting Free.... cool info! didn't know that is why pipes are copper! Groovy!

removing roses in september

MedlindaG, I have the exact same problem (minus the 5 year old. lol) We've dug this rose out several times and it just keep coming back. It's down to two long stems now and looks really stupid. My husband said we'd just start mowing it to death. Guess we'll see. I may give the copper screw a try!

I think you've got a good rose-removal solution there, Challenger. If you feel like you want to try anything else, I once got rid of a ridiculously stubborn plant by digging to a root, cutting it so I had an end of a root still attached to the plant, and rubber-banding a small bag of salt onto the end of the root. The plant died! We've planted other plants there (not commonly hardy ones), and it's been about fifteen years since then, and they're growing wonderfully. Keep the bag small, just enough to kill the plant. This was at my mom's house in Melbourne, and I actually used an ice-popsicle bag to put the salt in which I attached to the end of the root. Might help another time. Might not, that's okay. :0)
>^~^<