Spikes in our Garden

We are now past the second anniversary of moving into our current house, an appropriate time perhaps to look back over what we have done in that time, what changes we have made to both the house and the surrounding land. But then as I look back over previous blog entries I realise that I have spent the whole period doing exactly that! I also note that I have mentioned some of the garden plants we inherited with the house and moaned on various occasions about the spiky nature of so many of them. We have gorse, bramble, mahonia, wild roses, strawberries, holly...the list goes on. But did I mention, I wonder, the most tenacious plant of all, one that has spikes that all the others must be insanely jealous of, one that has stems that resist all human efforts to snap, one that has strong roots which spread out from each bush to emerge nearby with innocent looking green shoots, only later becoming spike ridden? I am, of course, referring to prunus spinosa, the blackthorn.

Some might be thinking now of the fruit of this shrub, the sloe. The tough skin and the single seed within means that this is a drupe, not a berry, and it has a sharp, astringent flavour if you are ever foolish enough to try to eat it. (I did also read that the seed inside contains cyanide!) Not that this is particularly relevant to us since the bushes living in our garden have yet to produce a single fruit. What they do have though, in spades, is the most incredibly tough thorny spikes that you will ever meet. These things stick out randomly from every stem in such a way that they soon become entangled with the adjacent stems and the whole plant becomes one large ball of flesh-tearing horribleness should anyone get too close. Each smooth surfaced thorny spike is long and straight, black in colour with remarkably strong sinews inside, such that it cannot be snapped from the branch from which it has emerged; no matter how it is bent it will simply spring back into shape. This same strength is present throughout the whole plant and remains even after it has been dug up and ripped from the soil. Because of this the plants have long had a practical use - fencing in cattle to prevent them from roaming.

Fortunately we are not completely overrun with blackthorn although it has found a home in one corner of our garden in particular and has spread its roots pretty thoroughly there. We tried to ignore this for nearly two years, during which time we were focussed on tackling the many other thorny plants, but eventually the time came when we decided we could not let the blackthorn spread any further. So on went the body protection - thick leather gloves, boots and a tough jacket - and we gathered together the appropriate garden tools to tackle the job. The nature of the plant, which can grow up to six metres tall, is to produce a tangle of branches within which other less well armed plants can hide. Removing these unwelcome plants (many would refer to these as weeds) is almost impossible without serious injury so tackling each shrub is a major gardening enterprise. 

In order to gain access to the base of the shrub to cut any of the stems the surrounding low level branches must first be removed. These are, of course, riddled with thorns so a pair of long handled loppers is maneuvered in past these, with some difficulty as the spikes are tough enough to push back even this gardener's weapon of choice. The cut must be made straight across the stem - too much of an angle and the stringy sinews will remain connected - and once a branch is cut it must be pulled free from the bush. This is the dangerous part since every part of the cut stem has thorns and these are tangled up with the rest of the plant so that considerable force is required to rip it free. It is at this point that the quality of those thick leather gloves will be tested fully and any weakness exploited by the thorns as they resist being separated from their home plant. I should have mentioned here that summer, when the blackthorn's own leaves hide everything from view, is not the time to tackle the plant, although in winter a cut branch once removed should not be left lying nearby in case it is trodden on.

The thorns can penetrate the soles of rubber boots and even tough shoes can fall victim to these weapons. I extracted the tip of one particular little beast (and no, it was not a nail) from the sole of one of my gardening shoes. It was firmly embedded and stabbing my big toe.

Despite all these hazards we do eventually manage to cut each bush down to ground level. Getting the roots up would be nice but so long as we cut off each new shoot as it emerges in the Spring we hope that eventually the last signs of life from these plants will disappear. At this point, after applying the relevant first aid to all our scratches, we now have a heap of spiky branches and twigs to deal with. These we cut into smaller pieces and squash, carefully, into our garden incinerator, an old and rather rusty dustbin shaped thing with a chimney in the lid which fits on top. It is at this point that I can reveal the inherent weakness of the blackthorn bush; it burns remarkably well. Getting the fire started wasn't easy, I admit. A small amount of liquid accelerant poured over the tangle of twigs inside the incinerator was needed to get things going but then, suddenly, the flames shot skywards and I stepped back as the heat built up. The surrounding damp grass was soon alight and after no more than thirty minutes the whole blackthorn tangle inside the incinerator was gone, every last spike had been reduced to a small pile of white ash and we could relax in the knowledge that we had at last defeated the beast.

How such a plant as this evolved is hard to believe. I can only imagine millions of years of being attacked from all sides by creatures with sharp teeth, beasts with such a passionate appetite for those berries that they were willing to sustain endless injury to their bodies in order to get at them.