Brambles

Before...

I had noticed recently that our resident bramble at the bottom of the steps has gotten a bit enthusiastic about life, and was attempting to jump over the drainage ditch and set up housekeeping on the cactus wall.

This is very bad news. On the one hand, prickly brambles (aka blackberries) are a great deterrent to the average vandal that likes to mess around in the drainage ditch, but on the other hand, brambles are unattractive, invasive, messy and quote painful to be around. So I had to get in that ditch and sort them out.

After!

It took a couple hours but I removed two tubtrugs of brambles and got pretty scratched up in the process. And it was not a second to early either - they were really running back in the cactus wall and about to be a real problem. There is still a lot of ivy to be removed, and a board down there needs to be re-pegged. But it's a good start. I should probably just dig up all the plants in that area and scour it clean of every scrap of weed... but the sun got too hot and I wilted.

This is not the first time I've had to do this - you'll notice I referred to them as "our resident bramble." This is because they are about impossible to kill - leave even the tiniest sliver of root and they come right back, so hacking at them is more of an annual haircut than eradication. If I was one for the herbicide Round Up these guys would be the ideal candidate...

I also watered several areas deeply as we're in a real heatwave the next few days. Hope everything survives.