Blackberries have taken over

I spent the weekend cutting back blackberries that had taken over the property we just purchased, and decided my new goal in life is to strike fear into the hearts of blackberry brambles everywhere. The blackberries are EVERYWHERE!

My question is, what is the best way to rid an area of blackberries? If I just cut them back, will they come back with a vengeance? Do I need to pull up the roots, also? Or if I cut off the vine at ground level, will the roots die on their own?

I love blackberries, but I want to be able to plant a few other plants, too!

i moved all the blackberries last fall and put a hosta garden in where they were
I had to dig out the roots and i still have lil baby plants that are coming up i think from seeds!!! i just pull and toss em!!
I did replant most of the berries-what the heck was i thinking!!!! ;)

good luck they are a pain in the BODY!!!

Patricia,

I believe blackberries are like dewberries. They will grow from any root section with a node that is left in the ground. Whatever you do, don't rototill the ground or you will have hundreds of plants. Our local county extension agent said repeated applications of an herbicide might kill them. We live on a ranch so solarizing is impractical, but if you have just a few plants, you could try sterilize the soil with clear plastic. That works best during the summer. If I have to use an herbicide, I like to use Round-Up because it becomes inactive when it hits the soil and won't travel through the soil like other herbicides do. The reason blackberries and dewberries are so successful is because they are so difficult to eradicate. It will need to be sprayed several times or the soil solarized for long periods or maybe a combination of the two.

Thank you for the warning, bettydee! (I have visions of Mickey Mouse as The Socerer's Apprentice, when all those brooms start carrying buckets of water!) We will keep the tiller AWAY from the blackberries.

Are you sure about the Round-up? I hate to think I'm poisoning the earth...

RoundUp binds to soil particles and is then broken down by bacteria. Here are a few links to website on RoundUp's effect on soil:

http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/content/products/productivity/roundup/ecotoxicological_risk_backgrounderfinal.pdf
http://www.agronomy.org/cca/exam_pdf/ss1310.pdf
http://www.safe2use.com/poisons-pesticides/pesticides/organo/glyphosate.htm

I have wild blackberries that I pick and I also grow lots of tame thornless blackberries in my garden. They will spread by underground lateral roots or shoots and you may have to cut them off and spray them to kill off the roots that may try to regrow. Wish you could have them somewhere else so you could eat the blackberries !

cuckoo

Oh, yes! I'm gonna save SOME of them. Just not an acre of them! Need a place for the house, you know. =)

Thanks, Everyone.

They are next to fireants on my hate list. The berries are good, picking them is bad. If I drop something, not on the driveway, when I pick it up I will have a few fireants and a few thorns from the Dewberries on my hand.

When I moved into my current location, the back woodland had a thicket of blackberries. Don't cut them; it is a waste of time. This is what you have to do: Get some tough leather gloves and a long sleeve shirt and tough jeans, get in there and grab them near the base and pull them up one by one. It took me about 3 years but I did it.

I have been here 7 years and am still working on eradicating the honeysuckle the same way. Across the street there is kudzu...not a chance that will ever get a foothold here!

PatriciaS Just wondering if you got rid of your blackberries that were taking over and If you left a few to eat on!

cuckoo

My neighbor has goats, and not a single Dewberry. Not much other brush either. They don't eat Primroses. He has a lot of those.

I was going to suggest goats as well! In Oregon, those blackberries grow like weeds everywhere and I remember seeing a news story (yes, they are news worthy here) about people renting out their goats to clear them. Unfortunately, they will grow back unless you eradicate the roots...

Or keep the goats.

Hi, Cuckoo! Yes there are still many, many brambles! I did manage to pull up quite a few, but I've barely made a dent. The property is four hours away, so I'm there a couple of weekends a month for now until vacation in April. Hopefully we'll be moving up full time this summer or next. And right now many of the brambles are under about 4 inches of standing water. (Hmmm, that'd make them easy to pull up, wouldn't it?) I thought they liked "good drainage?"

Those thornless blackberries -- do they have the same wonderful flavor as the wild ones???

Pat, Unfortunately the thornless are not as tasty as the wild ones. But what is?
There are quite a few varieties of thornless and some are more flavorful than others.
I have the Chester and they are very good but not as good as cultivated thorny Illini. But the thorny Illini is not as good as the wild ones growing nearby. But they stay in their place much better.
A compromise I guess.
Andy P

Here are the berries we're facing in 'way northern CA, so I can relate. What has worked best has been to cut and recut, then yank out weakened roots. I've also used some round-up on tenacious little ones when they pop up through the summer. It's working, but we have to be on top of the cutting, and I'd say it took two summer's cutting to take the lead over what we had on our hillsides (on the right in the photo).

At the edge of the clearing starts two acres of berries and black locusts, which have fallen over with the help of invasive ivy. Inch by inch.....we'll get them to grow where we want, because the berries are phenomenal.

Good luck, Patricia. Be as tenacious as the berries!

Hey trois, how come you didn't hire the goats to help you with your berry vine and honeysuckle fights??????

DonnaS

I have stopped fighting. Let'em grow. Uncle.
The goats would have eaten everything, except primroses and grass.