Blackberries, the rampantly invasive Himalayan blackberry vines that wall off our coasts and lurk along our trails, grabbing and tearing our clothes as we pass, the creeping alien in our soil, sending up its speeding, thorny shoots underneath our squash plants and tomatoes and in through the windows of our garden sheds, the swallower of more modest native plants, the aggressive colonizer of protected areas where our vigilance faltered, the ripper of hands and jabber of feet; hated and loved at the same time.
Because by mid-summer, they're loaded with delicious berries. Birds love them. Bees love them. So do ants and beetles and hover flies. Bears love them. We love them and fill our freezers and pies.
And in the spring and early summer, the flowers are so cheerful.
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| Usually the flowers are almost white. This one, growing onto the trail at Royston, is very pink. Colours as they came out of the camera. |
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| A paler flower. |
I found a fresh blackberry shoot under my mock orange in the garden yesterday. They never give up!
Spent hours blackberrying as a kid. If you could brave the thorns it was worth it. Stayed with friends at an army base and the biggest and best were on the firing range,Such a shame...
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