I need to kill a Hawthorn tree.

It is sending up sprockets on the roots, is about 6 or 8 metres high and heading towards power lines, has sharp spears everywhere threatening (and succeeding) in causing insurmountable grief to my fingers, and is growing right where I'm planning on sticking a garden.

The thing needs to DIE. My husband is going to wrap himself up in leather gauntlets and chainsaw the thing down, and as it is at the bottom of a bank with the street at the top, we're going to tie a rope around it and drag it up the hill with the car.

Do we drill holes in the trunk now, to give it a killing start (and do I fill the holes with diesel )? And then drill more holes in the trunk and roots that stick up after the ba@#/rd has gone? Quotes to remove it were on average $600, can't afford that so need to do it ourselves. (And quotes didn't include killing the stump).

Advice please?

just cut it down, with a chain saw, paint stump with diluted roundup, or diesel.

In my opinion it is best to paint the stump with concentrated glyphosate herbicide as soon as possible after cutting it down, and certainly within 20 minutes.

cutting it down will cause it to sucker more so when you do it the trunk will need to be poisoned as well as all the suckers I would use Vigilant Gel it works really well.

Good start. Cut it down, drill and fill with something like Woody Weedkiller.
be aware that won't kill it off with one dose and it is likely to recover and sprout again. Keep it up and every time you see a new shoot, rip it off.

After a year it should finally give up.

Thanks all. Blimmen nasty things aren't they. A nightmare to get rid of.