What's the best way to clear brambles?
Blackberries in particular.
Now I know many ways this can be done, but how to do it effectively and efficiently is the question.
What's the best way to clear brambles? Blackberries in particular.
What's the best way to clear brambles?
Blackberries in particular.
Now I know many ways this can be done, but how to do it effectively and efficiently is the question.
There's two elements here I've noticed
1. Removing the material
2. Stopping resprouting
Over a large area the best method seems to be to hire a rotary slasher, then mow regularly and reseed grass.
But let's be honest, these are rarely the areas blackberries take over. Usually it's places you can't get even a lawnmower into.
You can cut them down by hand with a billhook, machete, hedge shears, but this just leaves you with the root ends.
You can spray the whole bush with glyphosate, or paint the cut stems with it, or paint regrowth with it.
I've also seen bushes burnt but this depends largely on how much junk wood you've got to get rid of.
Americans seem to love metal blades on grass cutters, they look seriously unsafe and I don't know how you'd use them against a bush, but there's that
I'm Euro and only use three-points metal blades on edgers, which is the way to go for brambles. We also have special billhooks with a very long light blade to open passages.
Very true about resprouting, I think uprooting stumps them will yield the best results.
I've never used these blades, are they safe? I've heard you can only use them on straight shaft grass cutter but no rationale is ever given.
How would they compare to a reciprocating hedge cutter? Obviously a worse working angle but you could cut them from the top down and it might be safer
m8 you would be well advised to get yourself a hardy gravel rake and some good quality work gloves.
a sheddy to clear the growth out first will help, but not essential. you're gonna want to rip the frickers out by the roots as best you can and and then try to get an aggressive groundcover plant to take purchase before they have a chance to come back
Removing the roots by hand is incredibly labour intensive and in my experience doesn't stop regrowth entirely.
I've found that slashing them to the ground then waiting for regrowth to paint with glyco is a far better way to go about it as the glyco kills the roots, roots that you'd never find if you tried to dig them all up the first time.
Another reason is that if the brambles are growing in a ditch, on a wall, inside trees etc digging becomes even more onerous
Yes, good points.
I've only used them on edgers equivalent to my picrel and did so safely. What is a reciprocating edge cutter?
Pic rel.
It's actually still quiet a dangerous tool because it will sever fingers and cut into people with very little contact, but having no spinning parts its safe to use at shoulder height.
So I figure I'll cut a massive U into the bushes for access, use it to cut the base then haul out whatever is left.
That machine would rapidly get entangled, chain pruners or hand tools would work better.
If you decide to use an edger to open the work, you get in a stable position, raise it above the brambles, increase power and slowly make it descend onto them. Do it a few times to open sufficient space, then you can proceed with horizontal cuts.
Whatever you choose, I recommend to use eye protection.
Captcha: ASS0H
Man, I’ve been using a dewalt 20v cordless trimmer for years hacking trails into my property and it’s been fine.
Hand tools are way slower (billhook and machete in particular) - aside from a mattock, that’s been the best way to get the roots/heart after cutting away the vines.
We’re on a few acres of reprod timber, it was last cut in 2008 or so (before we bought it) - the blackberries had completely taken over almost all of it when the trees were saplings. It’s too hilly and to really get heavy equipment in there, so it’s been a constant battle trying to clear the blackberries every spring
This. Well, this coupled with a mattock.
Cut the plants as close to the ground as possible, then rip out the root + heart with mattock (if you don’t get the heart, it’ll just send out more suckers)
Alternatively, if you can get a mower through, if you seed clover or grass, and just keep cutting any suckers that come out, eventually the heart will die and you win.
I've got about a thousand hearts, and I've done the mattock last season and almost broke my back. It works, but isn't viable on the scale were taking about
This was more or less my experience.
My plan is to cut the bushes to three inches and leave the material, then use glyco to paint the stalks.
If I leave the stalks a bit higher I'll actually be able to find them, I won't get so many suckers growing, then come spring the seeds will put down and the suckers will come up and at that point I'll have to spray.
Advantage is the material will rot, there's no digging in rough ground, I'm only spraying once a year because I can get away with painting in winter
Rotary mower pulled by a tractor, then spray. That is the only way
That's the standard for fields, but we're out in ditches and on scree finishing these kinds of jobs off
I've tried the edger and no bueno, the line can't cut through the dead parts and even with 3mm line you're not getting far. Maybe if I had a better edger or the blackberries weren't so dense.
I used the hedge cutter the other day and it cut through just fine, the problem was removing the material afterwards.
Roundup.
I tried physical removal even with digging up and burning roots, they always grow back.
Those look like Himalayan Blackberries...which are cancer and should be exterminated with extreme prejudice--like Ivy and scotch broom.
Your short term option is to dig them up with a tractor. The long term solution is to plant native trees and shrubs to to starve them of light while continually digging up new sprouts--this could take years but is a viable long term solution if you don't want to bulldoze the lot they're growing in.
also, prune them right after they flower then prune them just before winter--this will totally frick their reproduction cycle and if you get them at the right time of year they will struggle if not totally die because they cant store enough nutrients for the winter.
Goats, lots of goats.
...GOAT
https://www.goskagit.com/news/invasive-blackberries-are-no-match-for-the-chomping-goats/article_e7c6fb84-60fa-58d2-91f1-b4fb7feda7f2.html