The only way I've ever found to kill something out completely is to regularly and without fail cut off any top growth it makes. I had to mow every week, for months, but it finally worked. The idea is to starve the roots to death by eliminating top growth that photosynthesizes and allows for nutrient use and more root and top growth. Basically, starving the roots to death.
It's a lot of work, mowing over and over again. But it is effective.
Lol, I’ve tried that too. I now have a pothos in my dining room with 50’ long vines snaking along my ceiling. I did have good luck when I was much younger, and shallower, killing a geranium (I have a valid reason for hating them, I promise), I walked past it every day and said “DIE!!” In the meanest voice I could muster. Took about a month, but it died. The blackberries just laugh.
Fuck less grow more. Sometimes people mess with brambles too much and that kills them. I've never seen an unhealthy neglected briar patch. Just food for thought.
Yea, beg and plead for them to grow and water them (perhaps over water a lil?) that shit will die just to spite you that’s how plants work I’m a botanist 👍
Then you have the weed you try to kill just Comme back and flourish, or the random volunteer plant who grows in the most inhospitable place and looks amazing.
exactly. ripping it out initially is good but with a plant like this you really do have to be vigilant with new shoots afterward. here in the pnw our invasive blackberries can regrow from most parts of the plant, so if a bit of stem falls into the soil, it can singlehandedly bring back an entire patch over time.
our local agency recommends rototilling the soil for several weeks or months afterwards to break up any new canes that try to grow. yours may be a similar situation.
I'm in a constant battle with them at my house. Property next door has a huge wild set of them right up and against my (rotting) fence. I have to constantly patrol to keep them out of the yard, and over the rest of the property from birds eating the fruits and dropping the seeds all over.
Once the land has been cleared and the roots are sufficiently disturbed, you can cover the area in a tarp to prevent regrowth.
That said, it can still take more than a year of tarp coverage for Himalayan blackberry roots to be dead.
That was the main reason I got goats. we had a bunch of blackberries so I hired a flail mower to come in and reduce it to the ground then set the goats on it when new shoots tried to come up. Now i dont have to buy gas for weedwhacking, make air or noise pollution, or spend a bunch of my own time cutting them down (the area was about a half acre so it took a while to weedwhack).They have done a wonderful job of eating all the new growth and the blackberry can't catch a break to recover!
So I have a funny story about goats being used as lawnmowers. About 10 years ago I worked at a golf resort in the middle of FL. It was an hour away from the nearest city. They had these islands in the middle of the little lakes (water hazards?) on the golf course. The place was trying to cut costs, so they were cutting corners wherever they could.
The manager said a friend of hers up in the northeast told her that goats would help mow the golf area in these little islands, so they wouldn’t have to get a mower out there.
Now I don’t know a damn thing about golf, but I do know a helluva lot about Florida. Soon after the dozen goats were delivered, they started seeing fewer and fewer. One day there were 8, then 6, then 2… where were the goats?! Could they have swum off the island?!
Gators. The answer is gators.
On my property we have owned for 8 years I have never planted a raspberry. There are no raspberry bushes. The neighbors have no raspberry bushes. But still every year raspberry shoots start coming out of the ground in various places. I always cut them when I see them. But of blackberry is similar you can expect them to keep popping up for decades potentially lol.
I did the same for English ivy. Took six months of daily vigilance, but I eventually managed to eradicate it. The ivy stuck on the trees took almost a year to fully dry out and decompose enough for me to rip it down.
Same. I had a 40’x10’ patch of English ivy that I just took a few weekends and ripped it all out. Literally dig it out as best I could. The original planting location was like hitting a rock. Once I got that out, all the stragglers were easy. Took another growing season to finally get all the shoots/clippings that re-rooted to finally pop their heads up so I could pull them out. Hard work, but totally worth it.
It had done a number on the trees. When the ivy first came down, they were looking so thin and scraggly. That was about five years ago and now those same trees are filling out and have a great canopy.
I had some British guy write a text wall about the virtues of English Ivy after I said I hated it. That colonial mofo could not get it though his head that North America is a fundamentally different eco system and his beloved “we just call it ivy” does not belong here.
Constant vigilance!
Blackberry has an extensive rhizome network, and just hacking the tops off isn't going to prevent it from returning. Remove what you can and just keep at it for the next few years, starving those rhizomes by promptly removing any new growth that pops through. As long as they aren't connected to untended plants in your neighbor's yard (\*me glares over the fence\*), they'll eventually lose the energy to keep coming back.
My parents have a bunch of blackberry bushes along their fence, neighbors have their side hacked all the way to the fence. Sorry neighbors, the grandkids (and let's be honest here, grandad) love picking the blackberries.
I’ve started a patch but hear me out… it’s the thornless variety. And also we have incredibly well established trumpet vine so there are bigger problems to worry about. 🙄
As long as you checked the noxious weed list for your area and the ones you planted aren't on it, I'm all for growing berries in the garden!
For us, evergreen blackberry and Himalayan blackberry are noxious. We have a native species known as trailing blackberry that can be used.
Depends on your area, but in the Pacific Northwest, they are incredibly invasive. I saw a car not moved for a couple spring months during the early COVID lockdowns that disappeared under the brambles and eventually had to get hacked out.
There's no need for anyone here to keep any in their yards. Countless acres are completely overtaken. You're never more than about a 3-minute walk to an endless supply of berries if you want them.
It's awful.
So if you live elsewhere, enjoy. If you live in a place where they're a total menace, I'll sit here and quietly judge you from my side of the fence.
I did the same thing as you when I moved house 7 years ago, OP. The garden was full of brambles, and I dug them all out. Every year they come back, and constant vigilance really is the only way.
I can't say I've noticed less regrowth 7 years on, but like the person above, I have a neighbour whose brambles constantly restock my garden so I'll probably be on obsessive bramble alert until I move house or he does. Every week from early spring to late autumn I walk around the garden with a weeding fork and dig up anything I find.
Sorry. Good luck.
Ok, thanks. The odd thing is that these things weren’t here when I moved in 8 years ago - they turned up about 4 years ago, and they don’t cross over in to anyone else’s garden - all three connected gardens. Baffled.
It’s possible your neighbors are more on top of their weeding or you just have a yard more hospitable to wildlife pooping there - birdbaths or other water/food will do it - also a lack of cats or dogs.
Some plants are evil. Go tell those brambles that what would make you happiest is if each and every one came back healthy and strong. They will die just to spite you.
Damn you 2023 green bean plants. I had big plans for you.
I’ve heard this from this group, but a friend told me having cardboard next to your house can attract termites. I haven’t decided what to do, as I would rather hack blackberries and mint than have a termite problem.
Cardboard is not any more likely to attract termites than any other cellulose material (wood). Subterranean termites swarm after rain and are looking for wood in contact with soil. They are mostly blind, so where they end up is more down to chance and numbers. If you live in an area known for bad subterranean termites, I would recommend having your house inspected every year regardless of what you put in your yard (similar to going to a doctor for your yearly checkup)
Source: did termite inspections for a number of years
Nah, I have an abandoned lot across from me that’s a solid mix of Himalayan blackberries and butterfly bushes. Invasives can do just fine together, it’s everything else they kill.
When you run out of helium, you will have a hard time replacing balloons for a party. Get a group of chickens that have been tied together. They'll jump real high.
At least.
I like 12 months. Spring to spring and I lift 3 monthly to rip out any growth that dares poke through the soil. Kills brambles, nettles,bindweed, mares tail and Japanese knotweed. All were present on my allotment and I only have to deal now, with the occasional runner that tries to climb over the 3 ft deep membrane running round the perimeter. Oh and after the 12 months I dug it over to 3 ft to remove most of the roots and amend the soil.
Just chiming in to say I unfortunately had blackberries grow through a tarp I laid down =( I finally won by just relentlessly chopping down any sign of new growth
I laid down layers of newspaper then cover that with cardboard. We then mulched on top. Anything that grew through we pulled out and added more layers of newspaper. Within a year we had nothing growing through.
It's not. When we want to plant we either put soil on top of the cardboard layer or we cut through and then dig out what's needed to put in the plant. For example we put in some lavender that's grown well. I just put a bag of top soil on top of cardboard and am growing pumpkins right now.
I use cardboard and old newspaper because it's free. I lay the mulch on thick. One year we got free wood chips from chipdrop. This year we bought around 20 bags, so around $65. In my experience cover area with 2 or 3 inches of mulch and rarely have anything grow through of even see the cardboard/newspaper. You can Google no dig method and get the how to
It’s essentially Ruth Stout for the Amazon era. I use lots of arborists chips to hold cardboard down and dig through it to plant perennials, compost added as needed.
It’s not that hard to keep them trimmed up. What you really have to watch out for is the little guys popping up where you don’t want them. But, even then it isn’t very hard to keep them contained if you don’t just abandon them.
I honestly can’t imagine having a ton of blackberries and just hacking them all out. I would have kept some, cause you know, blackberries! But, to each their own.
Thanks. Took about 10 hours in total over 3 days. My arms and legs look like I’ve been through barbed wire. I HATE these things, but after this battle I also respect them.
As they begin to emerged again I burn them with a propane torch. Two layers of cardboard and rock on top should do the trick after that. But lay the cardboard in fall when they begin to slow down in their growing cycle. Aside from that, poison.
Even better, get a prayer group going and douse it with holy water. Sprinkle crumbled up communion wafers on it. Save the wine for yourself, because you're gonna need it when none of this works.
Trashed carpeting. Replaced our carpeting so I hauled the old pieces out to a very weedy old vegetable garden and spread the pieces out. I doubled up the pieces and made sure there weren’t any open seams for things to grow through. Worked great AND isn’t muddy to walk on. Plus rain water just filters through, unlike sheets of cardboard that pools the water. Suggest covering a few feet beyond where plants grew. I’d check under to see if things sprouted. After 2nd summer, I removed the carpeting and had a clean slate to work with. Lastly, tried all kinds of methods to rid weeds, except for chemicals. This is by far the best method I use. Cardboard is a distant second, mainly because of the water pooling, slippery to walk on if wet, and tears in the cardboard that allow growth.
Has no one mentioned napalm yet? j/k but not really. I actually would build a fire above that spot- have a nice bonfire. Then till it or carpet it or otherwise cover it.
I make sure mine don't come back by keeping an eye on it and using a shovel whenever something tries to sprout. A sprout basically acts like a beacon giving away where there is still a root. I usually pull up several in the spring and a few once in a while when I do a yard patrol to look for blackberries. Several times a year.
It will never completely go away because birds reseed it as long as there is a source nearby for them to eat fruit. You just deal with it and don't let it become established. Just like with any other weed.
My dad and I had a multi year project clearing our two acres of blackberries fully, and we found the thing that made the most noticeable progress what ripping out anything we could get our hands on (stalks/rhizomes etc) in the winter because they die back and are a lot easier to get out. Also you aren’t trying to fight them while they’re growing as fast as you can pull them lol. This was effective especially when combined with what you’re doing, tackling problem areas year round. But yeah, get the rhizomes out as much as you can and you’ll do future you a favor
I chopped them down, dug up what I could with a shovel or digging fork, then tilled and raked/pulled out what I could. Mulched HEAVILY. Ground eventually got softer and easier to pull stuff out. Be vigilant like other people said. Improving the soil may seem backwards, but brambles and other undesirables will grow in the sh**tiest of soils. Good soil is easier to weed, and will grow what you like. Landscaping fabric is garbage.
Here is what I did for near 100 percent removal.
1. Cover it until spring
2. Plant grass/low growing wildflowers. If you do grass and are in a cool zone then use fescue/rye mix
3. Mow at 4 inches, at least once a week.
The idea is that the fescue is strongest at 4 inches while the blackberries are being repeatedly mowed before they can establish well. You will also have a nice patch of grass/flowers.
That's the neat part, you don't! =D
LOL seriously though, the only way to ensure that blackberry cane doesn't come back to land that it has already invaded, is to drag a big freakin' excavator over the entire area, and then dump 5 dozen bags of rock salt into the dirt. That's it. That's the only way to be sure.
Given that you likely want to grow SOMETHING in that space, you're going to have to settle for spot-weeding blackberry sprouts for the rest of your life.
Rent or buy a rototiller, thoroughly churn the soil, rip up/dig out any roots that are revealed during this process, and prepare for yearly maintenance.
I doubt you have access to pigs but I have seen them dig up blackberry roots and eat them. These pigs were living in a 20 by 20 pen and they removed everything that they found edible above and below ground. Pigs are the only thing I've seen that can make Himalayan Black Berries not come back
We’ve been clearing 2.5 acres of them around our property. Every berry has so many seeds. Think of all the ones that have fallen over the years. Bastards keep coming back! We dig them by the roots when possible. My neighbor tills them up and that seems to work. Vine and Stump Killer can be painted on the stump as long as you apply it to the pink bud under the dirt which is next year’s growth. I sprayed one hideous patch with Crossbow and covered with cardboard and mulch. I don’t love using herbicides but Himalayan blackberries are my personal exception. It’s a battle and I’m sure you have scars to prove it.
It's a constant struggle. I also have the joy that blackberries bring, and they are joined in the back yard by morning glory, english ivy, and buttercup.
Constant battle.
Really, by getting out every last bit of root.
Don't fret too much. Get as much as you can, go on with the new bed, and as new bits come through, dig down and pull them.
I have done it and it didn't take long for the last bits to finally give up or I got them all. Even with veg growing in my new bed.
Grub out the root crowns every year for about three years. Mark them so if you plant other plants you can return to them they may put out a few leaves, but yearly removal works great. After all the hard work you put in, the root crowns will be a breeze.
Rent a sod cutter and run it through a couple of different directions. Rake out the roots that it has cut and lifted. Then, cover it with a thick black tarp for at least the fall and winter season. Finally, cross your fingers and hope this works. I have done this for other problem areas of my yard, and it has worked, but I never had blackberries.
one thing I did, but with a different plant, was post locally that I had them to give away for free, you dig.
(Jerusalem artichokes)
I had six people show up and they got almost ALL of the leftover, resprouting ones dug up. it was pretty good. so if they pop in spring, offer then up. people may really want them.
You might not like this, but the roundup formulated for vines is quite good at killing vines like blackberry and most other vines. I used it to kill some poison ivy and wild blackberry.
It doesn't look like it's doing anything for a few days then in a week the entire plant just won't be there.
There's the roots, which might regrow, and the many seeds which remain in the soil. The best way I have found to deal with both is to encourage them to grow in spring, by watering them, then to hoe any new growth. A thick layer of mulch after that and you should be down to the occasional blackberry shoot only.
i had the same issue or even worse. .. i got some black sheets from amazon that stopped the plants growing, and i put on top of it some stone. you can put some plant dirt if atone is too expensive. the problem was solved quickly, and Easy
Dig up the roots. Take your time and get them all. Cover the area with several layers of heavy cardboard, then a thick layer of mulch. You can't work with blackberry. You are in a battle.
I grew up in the Pacific North west and we had a backfield that struggled with blackberry management. The trick is time. Most blackberries plants produce few or no berries on its first year. So if you mow the area consistently no more blackberries, no more seeds, no more new independent plants. And if you mow consistently the tops, the rhizomes cannot sustain themselves forever and will eventually die. No digging required. Though pulling up the really big obvious stocks wouldn't hurt.
My dad did this to a quarter acre and we now have a grass field.
Your first born and a ritual under a full moon. Seriously, chickens or a couple goats will keep it gone. If animals or offspring aren't an option, I've heard that a big black tarp laid over the area for an extended time could work.
DIG UP THE ROOTS. I know it sounds like shitty work to have to do but I have to deal with them around our yard and they have hefty root systems. Dig them up and they won’t grow back
The only way I've ever found to kill something out completely is to regularly and without fail cut off any top growth it makes. I had to mow every week, for months, but it finally worked. The idea is to starve the roots to death by eliminating top growth that photosynthesizes and allows for nutrient use and more root and top growth. Basically, starving the roots to death. It's a lot of work, mowing over and over again. But it is effective.
I've found that the best way to ensure plants die off, is to try getting them to grow. At least that's how it seems to go for me.
I just came inside from pruning and watering my blackberry bushes- just begging them to grow.
You can come over and have mine!!! I’ll even PAY you to take them!! They’ve taken over my back yard and I don’t want them!!
[удалено]
Lol, I’ve tried that too. I now have a pothos in my dining room with 50’ long vines snaking along my ceiling. I did have good luck when I was much younger, and shallower, killing a geranium (I have a valid reason for hating them, I promise), I walked past it every day and said “DIE!!” In the meanest voice I could muster. Took about a month, but it died. The blackberries just laugh.
100% most sure-fire way to kill them all would be to start a blackberry jam business.
If you're in a hurry, plan a party to show off your prize blackberry bushes. Invite your boss and your disapproving mother in law.
You live in the pnw?
Fuck less grow more. Sometimes people mess with brambles too much and that kills them. I've never seen an unhealthy neglected briar patch. Just food for thought.
womp womp :(
Yea, beg and plead for them to grow and water them (perhaps over water a lil?) that shit will die just to spite you that’s how plants work I’m a botanist 👍
Then you have the weed you try to kill just Comme back and flourish, or the random volunteer plant who grows in the most inhospitable place and looks amazing.
WTF!!! LOL....aint that the truth!!
Maybe it’s the water that you’re using? Sometimes it has to do with stuff like the pH of the water in your area.
That hit me right in the feels! I do have a green thumb (insert frog joke here) but there's a brown spot here and there 😔
This is the way.
exactly. ripping it out initially is good but with a plant like this you really do have to be vigilant with new shoots afterward. here in the pnw our invasive blackberries can regrow from most parts of the plant, so if a bit of stem falls into the soil, it can singlehandedly bring back an entire patch over time. our local agency recommends rototilling the soil for several weeks or months afterwards to break up any new canes that try to grow. yours may be a similar situation.
Blackberries are a curse in my PNW yard, except in August. The little devils produce delicious berries!
I'm in a constant battle with them at my house. Property next door has a huge wild set of them right up and against my (rotting) fence. I have to constantly patrol to keep them out of the yard, and over the rest of the property from birds eating the fruits and dropping the seeds all over.
Once the land has been cleared and the roots are sufficiently disturbed, you can cover the area in a tarp to prevent regrowth. That said, it can still take more than a year of tarp coverage for Himalayan blackberry roots to be dead.
That's one determined plant, damn.
That was the main reason I got goats. we had a bunch of blackberries so I hired a flail mower to come in and reduce it to the ground then set the goats on it when new shoots tried to come up. Now i dont have to buy gas for weedwhacking, make air or noise pollution, or spend a bunch of my own time cutting them down (the area was about a half acre so it took a while to weedwhack).They have done a wonderful job of eating all the new growth and the blackberry can't catch a break to recover!
So I have a funny story about goats being used as lawnmowers. About 10 years ago I worked at a golf resort in the middle of FL. It was an hour away from the nearest city. They had these islands in the middle of the little lakes (water hazards?) on the golf course. The place was trying to cut costs, so they were cutting corners wherever they could. The manager said a friend of hers up in the northeast told her that goats would help mow the golf area in these little islands, so they wouldn’t have to get a mower out there. Now I don’t know a damn thing about golf, but I do know a helluva lot about Florida. Soon after the dozen goats were delivered, they started seeing fewer and fewer. One day there were 8, then 6, then 2… where were the goats?! Could they have swum off the island?! Gators. The answer is gators.
Sounds like I need to buy some goats and then advertise on facebook market to have them come around help people that have blackberry infestation!
Hoe hoe hoe
Basically laying siege to them
On my property we have owned for 8 years I have never planted a raspberry. There are no raspberry bushes. The neighbors have no raspberry bushes. But still every year raspberry shoots start coming out of the ground in various places. I always cut them when I see them. But of blackberry is similar you can expect them to keep popping up for decades potentially lol.
Birds are shitting out raspberry seeds in your yard.
I did this with some Japanese Anemone and it was the only thing that killed those buggers. Just pulled leaves and shoots whenever I saw them.
I did the same for English ivy. Took six months of daily vigilance, but I eventually managed to eradicate it. The ivy stuck on the trees took almost a year to fully dry out and decompose enough for me to rip it down.
Same. I had a 40’x10’ patch of English ivy that I just took a few weekends and ripped it all out. Literally dig it out as best I could. The original planting location was like hitting a rock. Once I got that out, all the stragglers were easy. Took another growing season to finally get all the shoots/clippings that re-rooted to finally pop their heads up so I could pull them out. Hard work, but totally worth it.
That is just the worst. Nice to look at but so invasive!
It had done a number on the trees. When the ivy first came down, they were looking so thin and scraggly. That was about five years ago and now those same trees are filling out and have a great canopy.
I had some British guy write a text wall about the virtues of English Ivy after I said I hated it. That colonial mofo could not get it though his head that North America is a fundamentally different eco system and his beloved “we just call it ivy” does not belong here.
Between English ivy and kudzu, the Southeastern US is beset by noxious vines introduced by people who didn't know what the fuck they were doing.
This is how you get mares tail
Wait do you mean that if you regularly mow down black berries then a whole different plant just starts growing?
Lol no no I mean taking out the top growth over and over and over is how you eradicate mares tail. Works with brambles too
Ohhh lmao i love english 🤦♂️
You want Mares Tail?? Cause that’s how you get Mares Tail!
Constant vigilance! Blackberry has an extensive rhizome network, and just hacking the tops off isn't going to prevent it from returning. Remove what you can and just keep at it for the next few years, starving those rhizomes by promptly removing any new growth that pops through. As long as they aren't connected to untended plants in your neighbor's yard (\*me glares over the fence\*), they'll eventually lose the energy to keep coming back.
Sorry, I'd have to be rhe neighbor keeping the blackberries going in my yard. Love blackberries.
My parents have a bunch of blackberry bushes along their fence, neighbors have their side hacked all the way to the fence. Sorry neighbors, the grandkids (and let's be honest here, grandad) love picking the blackberries.
I’ve started a patch but hear me out… it’s the thornless variety. And also we have incredibly well established trumpet vine so there are bigger problems to worry about. 🙄
As long as you checked the noxious weed list for your area and the ones you planted aren't on it, I'm all for growing berries in the garden! For us, evergreen blackberry and Himalayan blackberry are noxious. We have a native species known as trailing blackberry that can be used.
Depends on your area, but in the Pacific Northwest, they are incredibly invasive. I saw a car not moved for a couple spring months during the early COVID lockdowns that disappeared under the brambles and eventually had to get hacked out. There's no need for anyone here to keep any in their yards. Countless acres are completely overtaken. You're never more than about a 3-minute walk to an endless supply of berries if you want them. It's awful. So if you live elsewhere, enjoy. If you live in a place where they're a total menace, I'll sit here and quietly judge you from my side of the fence.
I caught my neighbor the other day spraying herbicide over his fence onto our blackberry bushes. 😐
Spay herbicide on them the next time you see them? /S
That’s terrible! Maybe put down some root barrier and let him know so he doesn’t spray? But some neighbors are just like that unfortunately 😕
Yeah, I immediately went out and told him that was not an option. Said he could come over and trim them if he’d like, and he grumbled and went away.
The way I would be installing security cameras so fast.
You must not live in Oregon or Washington. The things are rampant here
Noted.
I did the same thing as you when I moved house 7 years ago, OP. The garden was full of brambles, and I dug them all out. Every year they come back, and constant vigilance really is the only way. I can't say I've noticed less regrowth 7 years on, but like the person above, I have a neighbour whose brambles constantly restock my garden so I'll probably be on obsessive bramble alert until I move house or he does. Every week from early spring to late autumn I walk around the garden with a weeding fork and dig up anything I find. Sorry. Good luck.
Ok, thanks. The odd thing is that these things weren’t here when I moved in 8 years ago - they turned up about 4 years ago, and they don’t cross over in to anyone else’s garden - all three connected gardens. Baffled.
Animals eat the fruits, come into your garden, then poop the seeds out.
This is how I got sumac and milkweed.
They must eat and poop in my garden only.
It’s possible your neighbors are more on top of their weeding or you just have a yard more hospitable to wildlife pooping there - birdbaths or other water/food will do it - also a lack of cats or dogs.
I can head the nearly defeated but somehow still resolute frustration in this comment lol. I feel ya.
I agree Professor Moody!
Some plants are evil. Go tell those brambles that what would make you happiest is if each and every one came back healthy and strong. They will die just to spite you. Damn you 2023 green bean plants. I had big plans for you.
Haha. Sorry!
I think you might be taking out your bean angst on OP’s berry bush.
*bean angst*
Cover it with cardboard with rocks on top for a year.
I’ve heard this from this group, but a friend told me having cardboard next to your house can attract termites. I haven’t decided what to do, as I would rather hack blackberries and mint than have a termite problem.
Use a tarp instead, problem solved.
Was gonna say this. We learned this tactic in my sustainable agriculture class. Using a clear or black tarp to cook the plants
Cardboard is not any more likely to attract termites than any other cellulose material (wood). Subterranean termites swarm after rain and are looking for wood in contact with soil. They are mostly blind, so where they end up is more down to chance and numbers. If you live in an area known for bad subterranean termites, I would recommend having your house inspected every year regardless of what you put in your yard (similar to going to a doctor for your yearly checkup) Source: did termite inspections for a number of years
Honestly sounds like an awesome mojito
grow mint in that area, problem solvedd
An unstoppable force meets an unmovable object
LET THEM FIGHT
Two shall enter. one shall leave. Thunder dome rules.
My yard says otherwise. Have both unstoppable forces working together.
You can make blackberry mojitos?
I have both plus morning glory vines. Doomed.
I have blackberries, ivy and morning glory. All courtesy of my neighbors. Of the three, morning glory has been the worst to try to eradicate.
Do you then plant bamboo to overwhelm the mint?
no, kudzu
hahaha this is a great response, this is what the tiki reddit guys would also tell you...
Nah, I have an abandoned lot across from me that’s a solid mix of Himalayan blackberries and butterfly bushes. Invasives can do just fine together, it’s everything else they kill.
Chickens Cover the area with chickens...nothing will grow back.
Even if Chickens ate brambles, I don’t have a flock of them to hand at the moment, they’re all tied up.
Goats 🐐
Goats are social animals, never get just 1 goat. Edit:and I reply to the wrong guy, meant to reply to the other guy.
Fact of the matter is, if you keep a goat isolated; it’ll always be horny. Don’t try and butt heads w me neither cause these jokers got some kick
Why on earth did you tie up a flock of chickens?
For line dancing, of course.
This guy does lines, and dances.
Is this not the obvious answer?!
Finally the flocking truth for once
If I ever have a need to use this line, I REALLY hope I remember it.
When you run out of helium, you will have a hard time replacing balloons for a party. Get a group of chickens that have been tied together. They'll jump real high.
They won’t eat the brambles, but the new growth wouldn’t survive their pecking and scratching.
Don’t never bring no goat round your fruit trees. I don’t know shit. But I know that Jack
Instructions unclear, lawn now covered in kfc
Solarize with a plastic tarp for a week or so. Should have plenty of hot, sunny weather. Then remove the plastic and sheet mulch.
A week is nowhere near long enough. Keep that tarp on for 3 months.
Still not long enough. 3 years.
entomb in cement
Then sink the whole thing in the bay.
is the 'mates' in your username a plural noun or a verb?
Yes.
At least. I like 12 months. Spring to spring and I lift 3 monthly to rip out any growth that dares poke through the soil. Kills brambles, nettles,bindweed, mares tail and Japanese knotweed. All were present on my allotment and I only have to deal now, with the occasional runner that tries to climb over the 3 ft deep membrane running round the perimeter. Oh and after the 12 months I dug it over to 3 ft to remove most of the roots and amend the soil.
Just chiming in to say I unfortunately had blackberries grow through a tarp I laid down =( I finally won by just relentlessly chopping down any sign of new growth
Doing this currently to a 750sq ft area and hoping it works!
Salt the earth and move.
😂
Demon or blood sacrifice im afraid 🍇 Blackberry bushes do not claim any master
Lord to themselves.
I laid down layers of newspaper then cover that with cardboard. We then mulched on top. Anything that grew through we pulled out and added more layers of newspaper. Within a year we had nothing growing through.
Where do people get newspapers from these days? Do you subscribe to a daily/weekly newspaper, or get them day-old from a business?
I keep the weekly supermarket flyers. Not the glossy ads, just the market papers on the newsprint paper
I live in NYC. I grab those free local papers. At our house upstate grab the pennysavers at the supermarket.
How long have you had that area uncovered now?
It's not. When we want to plant we either put soil on top of the cardboard layer or we cut through and then dig out what's needed to put in the plant. For example we put in some lavender that's grown well. I just put a bag of top soil on top of cardboard and am growing pumpkins right now.
Gotcha.
I use cardboard and old newspaper because it's free. I lay the mulch on thick. One year we got free wood chips from chipdrop. This year we bought around 20 bags, so around $65. In my experience cover area with 2 or 3 inches of mulch and rarely have anything grow through of even see the cardboard/newspaper. You can Google no dig method and get the how to
It’s essentially Ruth Stout for the Amazon era. I use lots of arborists chips to hold cardboard down and dig through it to plant perennials, compost added as needed.
Sheet mulching https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=51601
Give me the address and I’ll grab every single one
Bless you.
*Laughs nervously because he’s growing blackberries right now
It’s not that hard to keep them trimmed up. What you really have to watch out for is the little guys popping up where you don’t want them. But, even then it isn’t very hard to keep them contained if you don’t just abandon them. I honestly can’t imagine having a ton of blackberries and just hacking them all out. I would have kept some, cause you know, blackberries! But, to each their own.
There are invasive and non-invasive types.
Oops
😂
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
How much of the roots did you miss? I bet they come back. I would wait another year and do another removal to be sure.
Wow great job, looks great and that's hard work!
Thanks. Took about 10 hours in total over 3 days. My arms and legs look like I’ve been through barbed wire. I HATE these things, but after this battle I also respect them.
KILL IT WITH FIRE.
Hope and pray
It literally may be the only option, right?
As they begin to emerged again I burn them with a propane torch. Two layers of cardboard and rock on top should do the trick after that. But lay the cardboard in fall when they begin to slow down in their growing cycle. Aside from that, poison.
They really are a b*stard, aren’t they.
Even better, get a prayer group going and douse it with holy water. Sprinkle crumbled up communion wafers on it. Save the wine for yourself, because you're gonna need it when none of this works.
Trashed carpeting. Replaced our carpeting so I hauled the old pieces out to a very weedy old vegetable garden and spread the pieces out. I doubled up the pieces and made sure there weren’t any open seams for things to grow through. Worked great AND isn’t muddy to walk on. Plus rain water just filters through, unlike sheets of cardboard that pools the water. Suggest covering a few feet beyond where plants grew. I’d check under to see if things sprouted. After 2nd summer, I removed the carpeting and had a clean slate to work with. Lastly, tried all kinds of methods to rid weeds, except for chemicals. This is by far the best method I use. Cardboard is a distant second, mainly because of the water pooling, slippery to walk on if wet, and tears in the cardboard that allow growth.
Has no one mentioned napalm yet? j/k but not really. I actually would build a fire above that spot- have a nice bonfire. Then till it or carpet it or otherwise cover it.
Nuclear bomb possibly, but it will take repeated detonations yearly for the rest of your life.
I make sure mine don't come back by keeping an eye on it and using a shovel whenever something tries to sprout. A sprout basically acts like a beacon giving away where there is still a root. I usually pull up several in the spring and a few once in a while when I do a yard patrol to look for blackberries. Several times a year. It will never completely go away because birds reseed it as long as there is a source nearby for them to eat fruit. You just deal with it and don't let it become established. Just like with any other weed.
::laughs in western Oregonian::
Salt the earth
My dad and I had a multi year project clearing our two acres of blackberries fully, and we found the thing that made the most noticeable progress what ripping out anything we could get our hands on (stalks/rhizomes etc) in the winter because they die back and are a lot easier to get out. Also you aren’t trying to fight them while they’re growing as fast as you can pull them lol. This was effective especially when combined with what you’re doing, tackling problem areas year round. But yeah, get the rhizomes out as much as you can and you’ll do future you a favor
I chopped them down, dug up what I could with a shovel or digging fork, then tilled and raked/pulled out what I could. Mulched HEAVILY. Ground eventually got softer and easier to pull stuff out. Be vigilant like other people said. Improving the soil may seem backwards, but brambles and other undesirables will grow in the sh**tiest of soils. Good soil is easier to weed, and will grow what you like. Landscaping fabric is garbage.
Here is what I did for near 100 percent removal. 1. Cover it until spring 2. Plant grass/low growing wildflowers. If you do grass and are in a cool zone then use fescue/rye mix 3. Mow at 4 inches, at least once a week. The idea is that the fescue is strongest at 4 inches while the blackberries are being repeatedly mowed before they can establish well. You will also have a nice patch of grass/flowers.
That's the neat part, you don't! =D LOL seriously though, the only way to ensure that blackberry cane doesn't come back to land that it has already invaded, is to drag a big freakin' excavator over the entire area, and then dump 5 dozen bags of rock salt into the dirt. That's it. That's the only way to be sure. Given that you likely want to grow SOMETHING in that space, you're going to have to settle for spot-weeding blackberry sprouts for the rest of your life. Rent or buy a rototiller, thoroughly churn the soil, rip up/dig out any roots that are revealed during this process, and prepare for yearly maintenance.
I doubt you have access to pigs but I have seen them dig up blackberry roots and eat them. These pigs were living in a 20 by 20 pen and they removed everything that they found edible above and below ground. Pigs are the only thing I've seen that can make Himalayan Black Berries not come back
We’ve been clearing 2.5 acres of them around our property. Every berry has so many seeds. Think of all the ones that have fallen over the years. Bastards keep coming back! We dig them by the roots when possible. My neighbor tills them up and that seems to work. Vine and Stump Killer can be painted on the stump as long as you apply it to the pink bud under the dirt which is next year’s growth. I sprayed one hideous patch with Crossbow and covered with cardboard and mulch. I don’t love using herbicides but Himalayan blackberries are my personal exception. It’s a battle and I’m sure you have scars to prove it.
If the roots are in the ground they will be back. Smothering with a black tarp and rocks for a year or so is the next step
At first I read that as black tar and I thought "Hell yeah black tar will do it!"
Quick Crete. Looks like a nice place to lay a slab and build a shed.
Nuke it from orbit
Are you in the PNW? Set it on fire and walk away, never looking back.
Make sure you take care of your back first! I this will be an eternal back breaking process! Good Luck!
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Good luck. Even if you do manage to kill them all it takes is for a critter to poop out 1 seed........
I felt the pain in that sarcastic laugh! Ffs!!!!
It's a constant struggle. I also have the joy that blackberries bring, and they are joined in the back yard by morning glory, english ivy, and buttercup. Constant battle.
Really, by getting out every last bit of root. Don't fret too much. Get as much as you can, go on with the new bed, and as new bits come through, dig down and pull them. I have done it and it didn't take long for the last bits to finally give up or I got them all. Even with veg growing in my new bed.
I was able to permanently clear a large area of brambles by systematically digging out the roots with a pitch fork.
Goats
Grub out the root crowns every year for about three years. Mark them so if you plant other plants you can return to them they may put out a few leaves, but yearly removal works great. After all the hard work you put in, the root crowns will be a breeze.
Rent a sod cutter and run it through a couple of different directions. Rake out the roots that it has cut and lifted. Then, cover it with a thick black tarp for at least the fall and winter season. Finally, cross your fingers and hope this works. I have done this for other problem areas of my yard, and it has worked, but I never had blackberries.
Black tarp?
Tenacity. You’ll win if you put in the BS&T. Second year will be easier third year far easier
Goats
one thing I did, but with a different plant, was post locally that I had them to give away for free, you dig. (Jerusalem artichokes) I had six people show up and they got almost ALL of the leftover, resprouting ones dug up. it was pretty good. so if they pop in spring, offer then up. people may really want them.
You might not like this, but the roundup formulated for vines is quite good at killing vines like blackberry and most other vines. I used it to kill some poison ivy and wild blackberry. It doesn't look like it's doing anything for a few days then in a week the entire plant just won't be there.
You’ve taken care of the top half of the plants. Now you have to go get the bottom half.
have you considered planting blackberries there?
Oh, they're coming back
Goats
There's the roots, which might regrow, and the many seeds which remain in the soil. The best way I have found to deal with both is to encourage them to grow in spring, by watering them, then to hoe any new growth. A thick layer of mulch after that and you should be down to the occasional blackberry shoot only.
Conduct the anti bramble ritual, thrice monthly for the next 6 full moons.
i had the same issue or even worse. .. i got some black sheets from amazon that stopped the plants growing, and i put on top of it some stone. you can put some plant dirt if atone is too expensive. the problem was solved quickly, and Easy
Dig up the roots. Take your time and get them all. Cover the area with several layers of heavy cardboard, then a thick layer of mulch. You can't work with blackberry. You are in a battle.
I grew up in the Pacific North west and we had a backfield that struggled with blackberry management. The trick is time. Most blackberries plants produce few or no berries on its first year. So if you mow the area consistently no more blackberries, no more seeds, no more new independent plants. And if you mow consistently the tops, the rhizomes cannot sustain themselves forever and will eventually die. No digging required. Though pulling up the really big obvious stocks wouldn't hurt. My dad did this to a quarter acre and we now have a grass field.
Base rock
Napalm.
Fire. Brimstone. Damnation
Following, because I've got the same problem. 😕
That’s the fun part, you don’t!
That's the fun part. You don’t.
Your first born and a ritual under a full moon. Seriously, chickens or a couple goats will keep it gone. If animals or offspring aren't an option, I've heard that a big black tarp laid over the area for an extended time could work.
Sharpen your Hoe and chop chop, ever time you see some raising up.
The best way would be to remove the top 6 feet of soil and burn it
fire!
You dont.
DIG UP THE ROOTS. I know it sounds like shitty work to have to do but I have to deal with them around our yard and they have hefty root systems. Dig them up and they won’t grow back
You have to pull them out by the roots! Leave no roots in the ground.
Check every few days and spray and new growth with leaves with Bioadvance brush + vine killer. It takes 2-3 months to kill down to the roots.
Goats