die plant die!!!

[deird1]

I hereby declare that when Sleeping Beauty was trapped in a tower surrounded by a humungous thicket so massively huge and full of thorns that no-one could break through for a hundred years...

...that thicket was just one big blackberry bush.


Blackberries are officially designated a pest in Australia, and after today I can see why. My tiny little blackberry bush has managed to grow through six of the surrounding plants, colonise other bits of the garden, and has tendrils waving six metres into the air so it can steal photosynthesis from the tree above it. It has scratched my arms to hell, dropped thorny bits all over my head, and caused me to use several swear words I wouldn't say to my dear old mother - and several more that I wouldn't say in front of anyone.

By the end of this evening, I was making loud vengeful threats to it, and informing it, through gritted teeth, that if it happened to be sentient and somehow killed me in my sleep to stop me destroying it, I'd come back from the grave and haunt it until it died because that's how pissed off I was.

And I still haven't chopped up the bits and binned them yet. That's tomorrow.

(Not that I'm done. It still exists. It's just WAY smaller. And on death row.)


*collapses*

Comments

[beer_good_foamy]

On the other hand, blackberries are delicious.

(That said, I still don't get why you'd import them to Australia. Isn't your country already full of animals and plants whose one goal in life is to kill people? Why add more?)

[deird1]

It goes like this...

*British person arrives*
"Hurrah new country!"*explores*
"...hmm. Not like home." *is homesick*
*imports rabbits*
"Hurrah! Home!"
*RABBITS DESTROY EVERYTHING*
"...did not see that coming."


Or...

*British person arrives*
"Hmm. Hungry." *explores*
"Clearly, no-one here has eaten anything here. Ever." *imports fruit*
*wasps arrive with fruit*
*WASPS DESTROY EVERYTHING*
"...wow. Didn't see that coming either."


And then...

*British person is unhappy* "Wasps everywhere. Hmmph."
*has an idea* "Huzzah!"
*imports cane toads*
*CANE TOADS DESTROY EVERYTHING*
"...dammit."



Basically? British people are responsible for every problem in the world ever. And they should totally compensate me for digging out their blackberry bush.

[beer_good_foamy]

Clearly, you need to start sneaking drop bears into the UK.

[deird1]

Been doing it for years.

Or, um.

Drop bears? What drop bears? *puts hands behind back* I haven't seen any.

[trouble]

I agree with this completely.

[jesuswasbatman]

In many versions of Sleeping Beauty it is, specifically, blackberries.

[curiouswombat]

Blackberries are like that. I visualise the prince eating his way through the bramble entanglement.

We've just had to destroy a fuchsia bush that was doing the same thing - let's hope no-one imported them to Australia.

(And, oddly, the thorns were a real problem for us too. Thorns? I hear you ask, on a fuchsia? Well no, - but it had taken over the entire front garden and there were two rose bushes that had tried to survive despite it - so were intertwined with it giving it patches with very nasty thorns!)

[klme.livejournal.com]

Um, also foxes ("We want to hunt them!! Oh...look at them killing all the wildlife..."), sparrows, starlings, pigeons ("We like brown boring birds! Not these gorgeous colourful parrot type things, and birds that laugh at us. Oooohh, the colourful birds are dying out...") and Carp ("let's put the fish we're used to into these strange water systems. Die native fish and platypus. Die!!")

British settlers SUCK.

[slaymesoftly]

LOL - I'm just getting ready to replant a row of blackberries this spring/summer because I miss being able to walk out and pick them for my morning cereal. (blueberries, raspberries then blackberries - I buy no fruit in the summer)But they are pretty tough cookies and need a lot of room. They make a wonderful barrier-hedge, though. As you might expect... I don't see as many wild ones as I used to. I suspect the deer eat them when they're young.... (want to import some deer? I have 20 or 30 to spare...)

[a2zmom]

They are very hard to get rid of entirely, so I wish you well. I have so many deer that it would never even occur to me to try to plant that so I guess I should thank the deer.

[velvetwhip]

I wish you success in your blackberry war.


Gabrielle

[padawanspider.livejournal.com]

Just keep your eyes peeled in the spring for any seedlings that pop up... at least, the blackberries we have here in the U.S. will pop up anywhere someone happens to spit a seed. Just walk around barefoot and you'll find them. (no, don't really do that.)

I have read that vinegar can be a very effective herbicide.

[immer_am_lesen]

'my tiny little blackberry bush'...*facepalm* please don't tell me you planted it, or lovingly tended one you found growing? I could have told you they're not to be trusted! :-)

The only way I've found to kill them here, is to use pure (undiluted) glyphosate. It's awful poison, but it's the only thing I found to rid our property of invasive ivy and blackberries.
Happy to give you a jar-full next time we meet. :-)

[deird1]

please don't tell me you planted it, or lovingly tended one you found growing?

Not at all. Discovered it a couple of months back, and have been trying to find time to get rid of it...

Hurrah for poison! I might need some if we can't manage it otherwise.

[immer_am_lesen]

Oh good. The wording just suggested a pet blackberry bush. ;-)

It no doubt greatly enjoyed the opportunity to TAKE OVER THE WORLD, in those few months....

Yeah,I hate using poison- avoid it all costs, being a generally-organic-gardening person. But for invasive pests, I'll stoop to this, if it means getting rid of something so nasty that's bad for my native environment. I figure it balances out karmically by me using it very sparingly and carefully only on those plants, and then planting awesome native things in their place. :-)

[redsixwing]

Ugh. It's Russian olives, here - big beautiful grey-green tree, with three-inch thorns and irritating sap (yay, Euphorbia, the nastiest genus of the commonly-kept plant kingdom.)

Best of luck eradicating your blackberry. I shall be attempting to down the Russian olives later this year. *sigh*