The white stemmed bramble by the wildlife pond, Rubus cockburnianus, has got to go. The roots I didn't have time to dig out in the spring have thrown up new stems ten or twelve feet high in the course of a single summer, and I have already grumbled about its propensity to run at the root. It is a pity in as far as the stems are, objectively speaking, highly ornamental, and if it were shy and difficult to grow I should be thrilled to have a modest patch of it. But modesty is not in R. cockburnianus's nature. It is so rampant, I don't think garden centres should sell it to the general public, and there aren't many plants I say that of. It might have its place, perhaps in the wilder parts of the grounds of a very large estate able to afford several gardeners, or on an island, but in a garden of only a couple of acres it is way too vigorous. And apart from the need to curtail its spread, it is not a low maintenance plant because if the old stems are not removed they lose their beautiful white colour before dying and becoming downright hideous. It is not a UK native, and I don't think it is particularly useful to wildlife.
Rubus cockburnianus grows as a clump former. It sends out underground runners, that sprout clusters of stems at intervals, starting as a single stem arising from the root then thickening out into knobbled basal plates with many stems. I began to get into a nice rhythm with the pickaxe, swinging it under a plate a few times then giving it an experimental tug to see if I'd loosened it enough to pull it up. A couple of lengths of root generally came with each cluster, and if I watch for regrowth and go over the ground again in autumn I should get most of it out. The roots don't seem to go deep.
The problem comes where it has sprouted immediately next to other shrubs that I want to keep, and I know that when I chop my way through to the boundary fence I'll find some of it has shot up through the buried portions of the rabbit wire. I can already see how this is going to pan out. If I keep at it, and given decent autumn weather, I should be able to remove the bulk of it by the end of the year, but I'll be chasing after odd patches of regrowth for years. Probably forever, until I move, or die.
I can think of more productive use of my gardening hours, but it serves me right for having planted it in the first place. I'd know better next time, but alas, younger gardeners than me will probably not heed my advice and only believe that it is a really seriously bad idea to plant Rubus cockburnianus after they have done it themselves and seen what happened next, not on the say so of some middle aged lady gardener. Still, wielding the axe is great for firming the upper arms and bust. Worried about your incipient bingo wings? Don't bother joining a gym, just plant Rubus cockburnianus in your thirties, and you can spend your fifties trying to get rid of it.
After tea I switched to watering, all the way up both sides of the entrance gravel and half way along the railway garden, where some of the recently planted alpines need a helping hand, and I am trying to persuade the Gazania and Arctotis to get going and put on a decent show before the first frost.
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