Brambles

[poliphilo]

My project for the autumn is to clear the property of brambles. I know I won't succeed but I think I can drive them back.

I started yesterday. The stuff is everywhere. It goes undercover, intent on creating new cells. You grab an end that's showing above the grasses- and find it stretches back yards and yards to the parent stem. Also that it's crisscrossed by other strands that are holding it down, forming a mesh, a network- and that's how impenetrable thickets are made.

I go at it with long-handled nippers- and wherever possible cut it close to the root- and all the time it's fighing back, grabbing at my clothes, stabbing me through my gardening gloves. I sympathise, I owe it no ill-will. I just don't want it taking over.

Where it has already formed proper bushes and is putting its energy into producing fruit I'm letting it stand. The apples are coming on nicely now. Soon there will be blackberry and apple pies.

Comments

[qatsi]

I have a similar project; we have a corner plot and there's all sorts growing under the magnolia round the neglected side - brambles, ivy, holly, oak saplings, something else (hawthorn I think) with extremely vicious thorns. It's worth tackling the roots if you can. Although, or perhaps because, they spread like crazy, the roots at each bramble stump aren't all that deep or strong.