Acantha - Bears Britches

Tortoise19

Having seen this plant growing in a Yellow Book garden and having memories of it in a childhood garden I bought a plant. It is now causing me real problems. It is spreading at an alarming rate. It is very deep rooted and digging it out seems to make it spread more. I garden in raised beds that are about 75cm deep. It is such a thug. I have transplanted some of the 'babies' to form a formidable hedge along my back fence but really don't need the plants to go from strength to strength in the raised beds. Any ideas on how to get rid of them? Weed killer? Flame gun?

Pete.8

The roots do seem to go down forever, and even if there's a tiny bit of root left it will re-sprout.
I had the same problem as you a few years ago.
I found the best method is to use glyphosphate (e.g. Roundup)
Sprayed onto the big leaves while the plant is in growth, the plant soon takes it up and will die in a few weeks, but do wait until it is completely dead before removing what's left above the soil. Also be careful not to let the spray get onto the foliage of anything else as it'll likely die too, so I wait for a calm day.
Mine also dropped a lot of seeds too which still appear, but the battle is almost won!
Lovely plants  - so long as they're in the right place