My neighbour, just moved in, has a profusion of woody, furry-stemmed
tree-like plants growing in her garden. They sprout 3 or 4 stick-like stems
from the ground and seem to be very fast growing with red leaves appearing
at the tops of the stems. It appears that they travel underground before
sprouting up somewhere else because there's a LOT of them, as well as one or
two larger ones which, I imagine, are the "parent" plants. The brown stems
are very soft for their thickness - a half to three-quarters of an inch
across - and are easy to cut down, but we'd really like to get rid of them
altogether.

Any ideas?

Si