Wild Brambles

 My neighbor calls this stuff Devil Weed.  Botanically they are Brambles, more info here https://northernwoodlands.org/knots_and_bolts/wild-brambles.  Brambles are wild berries that are like Blackberries, Raspberries.  OK, yeah I like berries, but not in my front lawn.  The Briar Patch comes to mind when thinking of this patch in my yard.  The Brambles attempted to take over the southwest corner of my house.  Lets call it a sticky situation.  The Brambles are covered with millions of tiny thorns.  This is much worse than Roses, which have large easily identified thorns.  Brambles have tiny thorns, that get microscopic...

The Brambles are all through the Euonymus shrub, but down the front of the house about 10 feet, and back another 10 feet.  The Brambles, like the berries, are vines, called canes, and everywhere they touch the ground they put down roots.  The only way to control this one is to get the roots out.  If you just pull the tops off they come back, stronger.  So, itz kinda of a perpetual task, and if you let it go too long it will turn into the Briar Patch.

So this task involves careful precision, and attention to detail.  If you get tangled up in the Brambles you will get all scratched up.  My forearms have scratches all over them.  I used heavy leather garden gloves which spared my hands.  You can see the difference in the last picture.  I found three Hearty Hibiscus plants in there.  Several saplings were also in there, one Live Oak, one Pecan, one Pistache, and a Bradford Pear which sprouted by a Rhizome from a close tree.  What a mess...  I'm still clearing out some dead wood from the Artic Blast last winter, and at least I am getting to clean up the front beds really well.