Brambles

[Richard]

Hi,

What's the best thing to do with brambles, cut them back each year, get rid all together(well try) or let them run wild. lts my second in the wood and until l looked back at last years photo's l hadn't realised how much they have taken over.

Richard

[Darren]

Brambles protect young trees from deer and provide birds and Dormouse with food.

If they are not in the way leave them, or if you have to get rid hit them with sticks. This will make bleed and become weak if you give them a clean cut this only encourages them to grow back more vigorously.

[Chris]

Brambles, like bracken have their place, but make a lot of themselves. They do protect growth and provide food for dormice, nectar for butterflies and bees, and are useful as cover for small animals.

When we cut back brambles, perhaps for a deer fence, or because we want to keep an area open, we do it with a flail head on a brush cutter. Don't try this unless you are really used to brush cutters! This knocks them back for at least a year.

We then find that in our wood, we get wild raspberries coming back as well as various other plants and flowers. The brambles do suppress them, so the answer is probably have some bramble areas, but don't let them take over everything. Regrowing coppice will also suppress bramble but not kill it.

Chris W

[greyman]

We're over run in our wood - hazel doesn't seem to offer much of a defence either the brambles just grow up and over, so when one walks about in the wood you end up covered in the blasted barbs! As the brambles have grown up and over the area underneath seems to have opend up and any regrowth of the oaks gets chewed off by those delightful creatures called deer. Mind you a good session with a stick on brambles gets the heart pumping and deals with aggresion quite nicely.

[Richard]

Thanks for the replies, l've been clearing some tracks and found if you cut at the bottom and roll them over, its just like rolling up a carpet. You can then go back and pull the roots out after if you want.