Honestly, the most effective tool is a spade.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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100% this. Blackberries are rhisomatic which means they can grow back from a tiny bit of leftover root. You need to remove all the roots to get rid of them. Also blackberries take three years to mature so you may have to deal with this for a few years before they are truly gone.
Don’t they still need energy for that? So if you constantly till it for a year you should be good too. Or am I way off base on that?
Way off base. To control rhisomatic plants you want to refrain from tilling. They spread easier when you till since you break apart the rhisomes and each piece can create a new plant.. It's one of those things that can really frustrate new gardeners or home owners who don't know about this. This is why you plant rhizomatic plants in raised beds, it's way easier to control them that way.
What if I till and then get rid of all the loose dirt?
Yeah but that's going to be expensive.
Yes, but after you till them a second time, before they can pull energy back into the roots it will slowly kill them over time. I’ve just heard of it as a cheaper more efficient way when it’s a large patch since it’s so much soil to remove and replace.
You would think, but in practice, they're very good at regenerating. That's why these, and others like oriental bittersweet and Virgina creeper are so problematic. (I don't know if they're strictly in the same category, but they behave the same.)
Dang, maybe I’ll look up their growth process then, I wonder if they get enough energy from the soil, or if it starts storing energy by the time you see the shoots.
Natures fascinating.
So I did a little reading. For rhizomatic plants, the horizontal vine is actually the stem. It's basically one big plant growing horizontally underground. That's why if you don't pull it all, you're just plucking shoots off the stem. And like most plants, if you cut up the stem and plant it, each section will grow a new plant.
Of course, if you completely shred it into very fine pieces, it won't be able to regrow. But it can come back from fairly small ones. You might think you've gotten it all, but it's just regrowing until it erupts again.
Apply fertilizer and start watering them. As soon as you try to get blackberries they die off in my experience...
This is my experience as well
I've found it easiest as a two step process, first removing all the vines using loppers (the kinda bolt cutter looking things), and then once that's all been trimmed close to the ground and all the vines discarded, then using a normal shovel to uproot them.
I like using a pickaxe to really pry up the taproots
But aren't blackberries good to grow? My market charges like $8 for a tiny box of them
They are extremely invasive.
Valid point, I don’t want to spend the time or effort needed to cultivate them, and I doubt Himalayan blackberries are a popular commercial cultivar
If it's really crazy, might be best to take it apart in pieces. Don't try to pull out huge pieces, just trim with lopers or some shears if you're brave and treat it like eating an elephant. Spread it over a couple days, even. Like someone else said, trim it all the way back to the root ball and, if you want it gone, shovel it