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Black Berries
Found in old fields, and roadsides. Prickly or bristly shrubs with 3-5 leaflets. White Flowers. Use leaves shoots and fruit.
Blackberries, raspberries, dewberries, these delectable fruits all come from closely related species in the rose family. Their leaves are usually compound, and their thorny branches called canes, often arch toward the ground. A cane leafs out during its first year. The second yeear it flowers, fruits and dies. Bramble patches furnish food and shelter for wildlife and protection for seedlings of trees and other shrubs.
Blackberries grow on erect canes or on trailing vines. Cane varieties thrive everywhere except in extremely cold or extremely warm regions; vine types are limited to warmer climates.
Boysenberries, Loganberries and Dewberries are popular trailing varieties. Dewberries bear large, near black berries; Loganberries and Boysenberries are
redder. In the cane group, Bailey and Darrow are god selections.
Planting Choose a well drained site for your blackberry patch. At planting time, soak the roots in water an hour or two. Set out plants 3 to 5 feet apart in rows spaced 8 feet apart for cane varieties; for railing varieties allow 10 feet between rows. Make holes deep enough to accommodate roots, then set in plants at the same depth they grew before. Care: Provide support for trailing types to keep them healthy and make picking easier. Erect types are self supporting, but adding support can make pruning and picking easier.
Fruiting and good growth depend on regular pruning practices. Because all canes are biennial (they sprout the first year and bear fruit the second year), remove canes after fruiting occurs. Thin new growth in spring to four
or five healthy canes per plant. For trailing varieties, leave 12 to 16 canes per plant.
An infusion of the leaves and roots can be used to check diarrhea and upset stomach, and as a warm tonic for an overall sense of well being. A warm decoction of the leaves and roots will reduce swollen tissue, edema (dropsy)
and joints, and heals sore throat and gums. The berries and the root have been used to treat diarrhea and dysentery.
Source Unknown
We have descended into the garden and caught three hundred slugs. How I love the mixture of the beautiful and the squalid in gardening. It makes it so lifelike.
~Evelyn Underhill, Letters
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If your dogwood leaves are turning prematurely red and has borer holes, your plants maybe plagued by dogwood borers. To control borers, insert a wire into the holes and crush the tunneling larva.
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