Best Blackberry to Deter!

Davesnave

Brambles are OK in a roadside hedge, but they have no class for a garden and they soon get out of control. If you must grow a member of the bramble family, Rubus cockburnianus is vicious and has long, ornamental, white stems all winter.

A much prettier prickly hedge is Rosa rugosa, which will flower in shades of pink or clear white. When the flowers go over, red rose hips develop, which look attractive...until the birds eat them the autumn. The thorns on rugosa roses are small but there's many more of them and the plant is self-supporting, so it doesn't flop about like brambles either.

You see Rosa rugosa in tough, urban landscape planting schemes; you don't see brambles being used like that! My neighbour uses it exclusively to hide and guard her horse exercise yard.

Silvertabby

Plantation7 wrote: »

She used to have some barbed wire up until the local Council ordered her to take it down, they told her an intruder could get hurt trying to get into her garden so she must remove it, the blackberry bush has took on the job of the barbed wire until she is told to get rid of it.

I would hope that the Council were thinking more of members of the emergency services not hurting themselves if they had to make a rapid entry onto your gran's property - but I wouldn't bank on it.

I know of an elderly lady who, because of her very bad arthritis, decanted bleach into an easy open lemondade bottle. She wrote 'BLEACH' on the label and always puts the bottle into a high cupboard with other cleaning products (even though all of her visiting family members/friends are old enough to read and know about the bottle) - but she was told by her council employed home help that that was illegal. Seems she would be held responsible for poisoning any illiterate miscreants who took a swig in between beating her up and robbing her blind.

Mr.Generous

elsien wrote: »

Does it have to be blackberry?
If not, how about a nice spiky pyracantha.

I'm with elsien, Pyracantha is also called fire thorn, and anyone who has been spiked by one will know why. I've got it as a side hedge and honestly you would not try and get through it.

I want a few more shrubs at the back might try rooting a few cuttings this year in good MSE tradition.

sheramber

Take a long shoot from the existing plant and peg it down into the ground. It will root and grow into a new bush. Mine root where ever a shoot lies on the ground.

madjackslam

As others have said, simply peg down a bramble branch and it will root, then you can take the new plant away in a few months. My neighbours have one that is vicious but also produces lovely big juicy blackberries, so I'm gradually fencing in the bottom of the garden with it. But also, as Dave says, Rosa rugosa is great. I rather regret putting it into a native hedge I've planted, but only from the injuries caused when trying to trim it back.

I wouldn't recommend blackthorn (sloe). I think it's a dangerous plant. The thorns can cause serious infections. You can argue a potential burglar might deserve it, but I'd be a bit concerned about other users of the garden.