Friday, November 22

Spared the scratches this year

There is one battle that I will not have to undertake this year. A battle after which it is always difficult to tell who had the upper hand. I usually emerge scratched and stabbed and my adversary missing a few limbs.

If you have been following Martyn's blog you will have an idea what I am talking about. We are renovating the area in which our thuggish blackberry resides which has meant that the thug had been reduced to a shadow of its former self - indeed one or two roots.

The demise of the said plant is charted on Martyn's blog here and here but just to summarise this ...

has become this ...


It is still work in progress but we are getting there and should be able to use the beds next season. The two beds in the the photo was where the annual flowers grew this year and has been split into two smaller beds. Once the pile of wood at the back has been burned the two beds may become three.

We are hoping that the stumps of blackberry root remaining in the ground will regrow but it will mean no fruit at least for next year. Although we do have blackberries elsewhere on the plot including our more restrained fairly new thornless variety - Loch Ness which unlike its thorny cousin offers painless pruning.
I won't be getting away totally scratch free this year though as I still have to tackle the tayberry.
I like to wait until the canes have shed their leaves so I can more easily see where I am going so maybe it won't be a totally scratch free winter - ah well!

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

22 comments:

  1. The plot next door but one to me has huge brambles on it, yours looked like a baby in comparison. It hasn't been worked since I took my plot on so you can imagine how out of hand it's become. Someone has recently taken on the plot and they were hacking it down at the weekend when Mick visited. I wonder if they're wanting to remove it completely, or if they'll actually succeed if that's what they're hoping to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did try and keep it tamed, Jo but in the end drastic action was called for.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the link to Hayloft's Hellebore Collection offer. I've just ordered one. At that price it's too good to miss!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've had some good offers from them, Mark which is why they email me. I'd be tempted but I have about a dozen hellebores already that I got from them when they were selling two collections of six for the price of one collection a couple of years or so ago. In the end rather than ended up with two of each variety I ended up with six single and six doubles.

      Delete
  3. It must have been a very prickly job. Their thorns are so lethal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've certainly had lots of need of a pair of tweezers over the years, Alain.

      Delete
  4. Crikey, that was a job and a half.
    I can sympathise. There are brambles galore on the steep bank behind the house that is my particular nemesis. Even if we could, it wouldn't be a good idea to dig them out because they hold up the soil! The would be organic grower in me doesn't want to resort to a chemical, but it may have to be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They really are beasts, Jessica, when we took on our plots they were covered in brambles

      Delete
  5. Goodness me I bet that was a job and a half. My trouble is that most of the time I let nature take its course but in the end it just takes over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does where brambles are concerned, Elaine one cane touching the soil roots and off it heads off across the plot

      Delete
  6. I'm very impressed with that transformation - a lot of hard work involved I think. Good luck with the tayberry. I have one in a very silly position and it's always pulling threads on my clothes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I keep having to pull bits of our tayberry in, CJ as it send canes out across a gap between it and the greenhouse. At least on the plot though I don;t wear anything decent

      Delete
  7. Goodness me, that's some job there! Glad you escaped the bloodbath, there's nothing worse than thorns.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We did think it would take longer to get out, Snowbird but Martyn did a good job,

      Delete
  8. I have ever seen red berry bush in the plateau at 2000 meters elevation from sea level. I think red berry and black berry bush are same plant, but they are different. I have no experience about this plant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blackberries grow wild in this country Endah, They grow in hedgerows where many people go to pick them.

      Delete
  9. I had a similar battle with a bougainvillea, after it I vowed to never plant a thorny plant again. But then blackberries are very nice......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't realise that bouganvilleas were thorny, Liz, Blackberries are nice and whoever cultivated the thornless variety is to be congratulated.

      Delete
  10. I'm impressed Sue! How exciting to have that area tamed and ready to grow new things. Hope the tayberry doesn't extract too high a price for its pruning.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the tayberry will be a pussy cat compared to how that blackberry was to prune, Janet

      Delete
  11. That certainly was a mammoth haircut for the blackberries!! Looks good though...wonder when the roots will forgive you and start to emerge again..lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are probably already making plans, Tanya

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.