I've recently moved house and have an unsightly conifer hedge at the front of the house that I desperately want to remove before the roots force the garden wall over. To make life easy, are there any diy suggestions to kill of the roots to make them easy to dig up?

I left 3 foot of tree in and dug them/chopped roots with axe and pulled them out (time consuming and a pain) but it removed the majority of the stump

The roots will be woody so will be a pita regardless of whether the hedge is dead or alive. Sadly a combination of digging and cutting is the best solution.

Unless you're lazy like me – I had a problem hedge and attached a chain around the root ball and onto the back of my pickup and pulled it out that way. I suspect that method might result in the sound of your wall crashing over.

I took an old drill to chew up through the bigger roots (spade through the smaller ones)…it took time but strangely satisfying 'landing' a big root !

copper nails into the trunks or copper sulphate solution poured over the roots or deisel

I've read about the copper nails but how long does it take to kill them off? I'm not particularly patient and want rid of the damned things

if you want quick results hire a mini digger

I'm tight and impatient 😆

neighbour got some tree surgeon type in with a machine that basically shredded the roots after he had cut everything down to ground level. Machine looked like one of those tarmac eaters the roads maint people use.

try this bad boy!!

http://www.roundup-garden.com/video_gallery/tree_and_stump_killer.aspx

Well it's not exactly going to put up new growth after being cut down. Conifers tend not to coppice.

So, cheap option is trim level with the ground, cover with turfs/raised bed/shed/rusty cortina

To be rid of stumps, either man with a stump grinder, lots of mess, not the best result I reckon. Or, cut them high so a digger can get leverage on them and pull them out. Digger will also be able to dig a hole to bury them, so no waste and a level garden. Size of digger depends on stumps, but have found a 20 tonne quite capable for most stumps you could ever find, have had some good fights in a 3 tonne on 1m dia. trees.

Oh, the copper nails is a bunch of tripe unless you can wait 100 years.

+1 for timber or a combination of digging and a 230mm angle grinder with a tree root specific blade on usually does the trick, providing they're not overly massive.

Targeted ad to the right of this thread now shows 500bhp of destruction – tree mulcher will probably be overkill for your job

chainsaw them off as low as you can
they will not regrow
and will slowly rot away naturally
cheapest/easiest

drill some holes and pour in glyphosate (eg RoundUp.

They will die and quickly rot.