It’s amazing what you can find on Ebay.
Finding black locust seeds and cut, unrooted, himalayan blackberry canes, took me all of 10 minutes. They came right away and I put some rooting gel on the canes and set them in the window. Then, I set up some rooting cups and injected a black locust seed into each. That was 5 days ago.
They should call it “himalayan doomvine”
Just handling the small chunks was unpleasant. The spines are so sharp that you can’t ignore them. In principle, in a few days, the stalks should start pushing out roots. Then I will transfer them to a peat moss block so the roots can develop further.
The black locust, though, they’re serious about growing. I didn’t do much except put a seed in the middle of the block and start watering it with a cover and a light over it. They’re already springing forth:
I’ll give them a week or two to develop roots then I’ll plant them at some of the entry-ways ATVers have carved into my property.
Meanwhile, I was on the Grainger catalog, looking for pipe and fittings to make a security gate at the studio, when it popped up with “people who shopped for this also shopped for this.” I guess ICE is a big customer of Grainger’s or something. But you can buy NATO-approved concertina razor wire for surprisingly low amounts of money. It’d be tempting to put some perimeter signs up that read “warning: razor wire” and then legally mark the wire (you need to put streamers on it or tresspassers can sue you if they injure themselves. I’m not sure I want to put razor wire anyplace, but it’s interesting to see it’s an option. You can get it on amazon, too: [amzn]
Geezus that shit is nasty.
Indeed. In deep grass, I once ran into leftovers after an army exercise. Before you realize it, the wire has cut through your clothes, skin, and flesh.
You don’t want to have the deer on your property tangle up in NATO wire!
How would you even safely handle that razor wire without shredding gloves, clothes, etc? I think the black locust and himalayan blackberry may take a while to establish, but it should be much safer to deploy.
Oh boy – GO, little black locust, GO! :-) We have that and you just can’t keep it down. I had some dirt work done while putting in a barn and asked the guy to take the excess dirt and put it around/over a black locust tree. He told me not to do that, because it would kill the tree. LOL. That tree promptly grew another 20′ or so and is happily in flower right now. And of course, it’s sent out about a million suckers. Once you get those going there is really no stopping them. The deer are going to love them; apparently they are very tasty. I would not know, I have never tried eating them.
That blackberry looks deadly. Also, you can get razor wire on Amazon?! Wow. That would keep the neighbor’s dogs out of the yard. I can’t help but think that next I get sued for having razor wire. That’s crazy.
Serious biological warfare ;-)
It might take a while, but as they say, Revenge is a dish best served cold!
@kestrel, black locust is poisonous. I have never heard of deer eating them.
Black locust is a serious pest in Europe, because it spreads extremely fast and is nigh impossible to kill once established. It also depletes the soil of potassium and releases nasty toxins into it, so very little can grow under it.
It has seriously beautiful and very hard wood though, possibly the hardest wood that grows in a temperate climate.
himalayan blackberry canes
Ah, we call them blackcaps. Delicious berries albeit not easy to pick. The bears also love them.
Johnson Catman> It’s not actually “razors” or really sharpened – it’s just stamped steel formed around a heavy gauge wire. Typically, it’s stored in a rigid container, and there is a handle on one end or the wire coil., and you set the container down, open the side, grab the handle, and stretch the concertina wire out like a slinky of pain and bloodshed.
And, although it’s not sharpened, it has those ridged barbs/points, that will stab into your flesh, and then just sorta unzip that location on the unfortunate individual.
Charly, @#6: That’s really weird because I have raised sheep and goats here for over 20 years, they always ate it, and none ever had an issue with it. They certainly didn’t die. It makes me wonder if ours are not black locust but they sure do look like it – the flowers, leaves, seeds and seed pods all match as does the bark. I just looked it up and it does indeed say it’s poisonous – however that is not my experience with it. In addition to the sheep and the goats, the llamas and alpacas ate it, and the horses also eat it. I wonder why it’s reported as poisonous? Do you have personal experience with livestock being poisoned by it?
One article I saw said it would be necessary to fence it away from livestock. That would be impossible here as it is EVERYWHERE and as soon as you cut one down ten more shoot up – because you’re right, it is nearly impossible to get rid of. My farm is not the only one here. A lot of cattle are raised in this area. I’m quite astounded because if this stuff is poisonous I would expect we would lose a lot of animals to it, but we don’t. I really do need to look into this.
@Charly, it’s a pest here in Australia too. I need to find someone who is removing some and score the bigger bits of wood for turning.
I suppose the razor wire is made via an extrusion and stamping machine, so they can just roll it out by the mile. or 60m spool in this case
In western Washington state the Himalayan blackberry is everywhere. I’m surprised you feel the need to “root” them, it should be enough to just stomp them into soft dirt and step back quickly. It’s an opportunist, popping up wherever fire or agriculture creates an open, sunny spot. With the support of other brush the canes can mound up over 6 meters high. During July-August it provides lots of fruit for birds, who poop the seeds everywhere, and for cyclists and hikers along the roadsides.
As a cyclist, the worst biological warfare exotic plant import has to be PUNCTURE VINE (goat’s-head) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris#/media/File:Trte_003_lhp.jpg
EVIL INCARNATE!