Help save my back!

Hello GA friends,

I’ve recently had my overgrown garden cleared, which contained very large overgrown golden cane’s, amongst other root heavy plants. When I had the yard cleared, I had all stumps ground down which has worked well, for the stump side of things. As you can imagine, the golden canes being the intrusive rooting bastards they are, digging up the soil is like throwing a shovel into a concrete slab, even under the old fake turf base is rooted. Literally.

I’m intending on placing turf down, likely the Sir Grange Zoysia as well as some boarder hedge around the fence line, likely Lilly pillies and maybe a feature fruit tree somewhere in the middle. I’m also thinking of creating a small “dug out” seating area with a small retaining wall (due to the slope of the block) and fire pit.

I need to dig out the yard maybe by around 200-400mm down, so what are my options here other than hard manual labour to dig down? I don’t think a cultivator would handle the roots very well. I’m open to any suggestions here! I’ll give anything a go if it saves me weeks digging this bad boy out! Cheers!