Brambles, Brambles Everywhere

Every year, since we bought our property, Ross and I clear a little more land.  Sometimes this new land becomes part of the yard, and sometimes it becomes something else-like the orchard. This year we decided to clear the land the left of our house.  It is a small tract with several young trees in it and blackberry brambles right along the small, stone fence.  The reason why we feel the need to clear it is that this land is a bit of a hill, and all the young trees are close enough to pose a danger to our roof someday.  We decided to cut down most of the trees and clear out the old, dead brambles to give us better access to the live ones.

I decided today that I would work on the brambles (as this will make taking care of the trees much easier).  The goal was to cut out the dead stalks; blackberries work on a two year cycle where the new shoots (primocanes) do not bear fruit, and the one year old shoots (floricanes) do.  The floricanes will die after bearing fruit so they need removed, or they will turn into a hard, prickly mess designed to tear your clothes and flesh.  I knew going into this that I was coming out scratched and scathed.

The biggest problem that I knew I had to tackle was the Oriental Bittersweet.  This stuff was everywhere on our property when we bought it.  I have cut it, pulled it, ripped it from the ground, cursed at it, and even contemplated doing the old slash and burn on all our land in hopes of killing this crap of a plant off.  It is invasive, and every time I go out to tackle it I secretly curse the previous owners of our property for allowing it to get so overgrown.  I am so used to it I can spot it half a mile away and even can spot it in the winter when it has no leaves.  I am winning the war here, but I had never really attacked it in the brambles-that is until today.  I pulled some and then pulled some more.  I'd turn around and there would be another strand.  I would start pulling out a root that would go on for ten feet.  I hate this stuff, and my recommendation would be to kill it everywhere you see it.  Even if it is in your neighbor's yard!  Tell them you're doing them a community service.  Believe me, it would be better to do it before you're stuck in the middle of a bramble patch getting sliced to threads trying to kill the bugger.