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Author Topic: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles  (Read 5275 times)

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
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Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« on: April 16, 2020, 05:45:47 pm »
My new home has a lovely big paddock of humpy bumpy grass that I've been told once looked like a bowling green. Aye right!  :innocent:    Does grass revert to a rough field if left for 3 years with just the occasional mowing down when it gets to a foot high?   :innocent:   The old guy who owned it before me was ill for a couple of years before he died and family rarely visited before that anyway apparently.  :'(

Which brings me to the brambles - a beautiful full flowering rhododendron and a hedge of strong elder trees are being strangled by a bramble conglomeration.  With this virus about, and us perhaps in lockdown for months, perhaps i should be grateful for the brambles,  :excited: but with neglect over the years and the old wood underfoot I doubt the berries would be any good.  :gloomy:

Soooooo  ................  slowly, bit by prickly bit, I have been hacking away at the old stems, with a view to burning them some still cool day, but it's a soul destroying job and I'm sure I'll be left with permanent scars.  :rant: I wish someone would reassure me that it will all be worth it.  :'( :'(
« Last Edit: April 16, 2020, 05:47:37 pm by doganjo »
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2020, 06:04:14 pm »
Don't forget that brambles are carnivorous and particularly love a tasty human bean  :yum:   That looks like a never ending job and once you've done all the canes then you still have to dig up the plants themselves.


We started our brambles over supports, with the idea that each winter we would cut out the old wood and train in the new growth and have lovely organised crops of easy to pick brambles.  The plants themselves have a totally different idea - they put out new canes which are ten feet long and stretch right into the polytunnel and root in the rhubarb on the way.  They put up next year's growth before they fruit, which makes their human-trap mesh, and they are almost impossible to pick.


I would like to be encouraging but I think you are setting about a somewhat thankless task.  Maybe think of your bramble patch as a wonderful wildlife refuge  :sunshine:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

cans

  • Joined May 2013
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2020, 06:23:43 pm »
If you can get a couple of the big plastic juice bottles and cut tops and bottoms off, then slide them onto your arms that will give you a bit of protection against the jaggies. And a hard hat for your head!!!

And yes grass does go all humpy bumpy if left for a while

macgro7

  • Joined Feb 2016
  • Leicester
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2020, 06:33:16 pm »
When we moved in where we are half of our land wasnt touched by any humans for nearly 10 years! Brambles were 3 metres tall and so thick!
I found 6 sheep skulls while clearing them!
6!

It took me a whole winter to clear them. Sawn grass seed, made an allotments, orchard and goat grazing area.
The brambles are still growing through the grass but I keep mowing them every week or two.
I fattened meat rabbits with just brambles. They are great thing if you can control them!
Another area behind our allotment that belongs to a delivery company guy across the fence who bulldozed it every two years or so, is my goats winter breakfast bar lol and in summer we pick buckets and buckets of blackberries from there!
Growing loads of fruits and vegetables! Raising dairy goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits on 1/2 acre in the middle of the city of Leicester, using permaculture methods.

RCTman

  • Joined Mar 2017
  • Rhondda fach
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2020, 08:25:37 pm »
Yes , stick at it, I cleared a steep bank of about 3 acres of dense bramble over a period of 2 years. Cutting/slashing  and burning, even had the Fire Brigade come out a few times even after I had phoned them to say I was having a controlled burn. Any re growth had spray and now I have rough grazing for the horses and sheep, bramble free other than in the hedges. Hard work but well worth it.

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
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Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #5 on: April 16, 2020, 10:25:52 pm »
I've just been told that garden burning is illegal in England just now.  I don't know if that is the case in Scotland but they can just lie there meantime anyway, the dogs will no doubt pick their way round them.  And they'll enjoy the long grass too probably rather than a bowling green  :innocent:.  I've put up a 5 foot fence all round so no-one outside will be offended by my rubbish patch/wildlife garden  :excited: :excited:
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

arobwk

  • Joined Nov 2015
  • Kernow: where 2nd-home owners rule !
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2020, 03:00:47 pm »
I'm not sure about garden burning - in the old days everyone used to do it, but I can believe it's now controlled/banned. 
While bramble scrub is a very good wildlife habitat, there's plenty of it all over and I would personally get rid of from any valued garden area if i were you.
So the hacking back is a chore, but it will obviously get easier season by season and I find that well shredded bramble (if you have a shredder) mixes and breaks down well enough in a good compost heap or composter. 

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2020, 06:12:45 pm »
I think they banned it in Scotland when they had cancelled the garden rubbish collection, to minimise the refuse collectors' jobs.  Then they found people were burning their garden rubbish, causing air pollution which was going into people's houses and they couldn't escape from it.  The Rule of Unintended Consequences.  I heard that in some towns they were reinstating the collections, but we don't get garden rubbish collections here anyway, so we either compost it or burn it on small bonfires.  The trouble is that brambles can go up with a roar and a lot of crackling.
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
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Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2020, 10:40:07 am »
I think they banned it in Scotland when they had cancelled the garden rubbish collection, to minimise the refuse collectors' jobs.  Then they found people were burning their garden rubbish, causing air pollution which was going into people's houses and they couldn't escape from it.  The Rule of Unintended Consequences.  I heard that in some towns they were reinstating the collections, but we don't get garden rubbish collections here anyway, so we either compost it or burn it on small bonfires.  The trouble is that brambles can go up with a roar and a lot of crackling.
It's not banned - as I discovered yesterday - three garden bonfires within half a mile of me, and no sign of any police cars.  Too wet to burn now, but when it dries off I'll pick a calm day and try a bin full  :fc:
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

alang

  • Joined Nov 2017
  • Morayshire
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2020, 04:11:10 pm »
I was going to plant some brambles this year :thumbsup:. Cannot find any around me in (South) Moray. Plenty of wild raspberries though.
I'm not scared to be seen, I make no apologies. This is me!

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
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Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2020, 08:36:34 pm »
I was going to plant some brambles this year :thumbsup:. Cannot find any around me in (South) Moray. Plenty of wild raspberries though.
I've got three 'tame' ones planted.  Apparently they are much better behaved but they are on probation.  :roflanim: One of them is white  :eyelashes: so I'm not sure what that will be like
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2020, 10:51:10 pm »
It's some of my supposedly tame ones which reach a good 8-10 feet to pop up inside the polytunnel  :roflanim:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

DippyEgg

  • Joined May 2017
Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2020, 11:12:15 pm »
Brambles make a very good "moat" round your property to keep intruders away, but not so good in your garden!
Do you think moles could have made your grass go bumpy?

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
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Re: Brambles, brambles, and more brambles
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2020, 12:18:39 pm »
Brambles make a very good "moat" round your property to keep intruders away, but not so good in your garden!
Do you think moles could have made your grass go bumpy?
No - no mole hills.  I think it's field grass and left to itself it goes like that.  Never been rolled in 30 years  ::) ::)
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

 

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