@clew maybe you already thought of these, but could you alternate the huckleberries with tall Oregon grape? It grows faster than the huckleberries, and birds supposedly eat the berries.

Or if you have room, add a serviceberry on one corner.

If you make it two-layered, perhaps you could add salal on the front of the huckleberries.

Yes. Fair amount of depth, actually.

This is getting complicated to plan. If I can get free cuttings of a bunch of plausible natives I could bung rooted slips all over the area and let them sort it out? Too expensive and diggy with nursery plants.

@marsiposa

@clew what are the rough dimensions of the hedge? Is the area full sun or partial shade?

I hear you. I'm doing a couple of short hedges.. maybe 20 feet each, and nursery plants are expensive.

I don't have experience working with cuttings, my concerns would be watering and being smoltered by the much faster growing blackberries. Can you wait until the fall?

I wonder if something like this could work: add an enormous amount of mulch on top of the cut blackberries. In the fall, plant cuttings in small pockets of dirt/compost and see what makes it through.

I've volunteered in local parks taken over with Himalayan blackberry. I've heard two solutions: either dig out *all the roots* or add enormous amounts of mulch (1-2 ft? I don't recall the number exactly).

I'll be doing a trip to the native plant nursery some time in the following weeks, I can ask some questions if you want.

Long hedge. 40'? 60'?? Somewhere around there. It's between a tiny rescue farm and a busy road so I want it to do about a dozen things -- visual privacy, sound deadening, bird habitat, reasonably friendly to pedestrians and county workers on the verge, can't get too tall because it's under powerlines, can't be too much of a harbor for blackberries (I am resigned) and bindweed (terrrrrrible problem). But it can be easily 4' deep, maybe 6'. 3/4 sun? Great aspect, tree competiton.

@marsiposa

Hi @Cetraria, I'm adding you to this conversation as you have more experience with large areas, and maybe you have ideas of good plants, or if this can be done with cuttings instead of nursery plants!

@clew is looking to replace a hedge of himalayan blackberries with something less aggressive but that still provides berries for birds. The description of the site where the hedge would go is in the post above.

(Clew, what's the orientation? East-West, North-South..?)

I had initially thought of a combination of huckleberry, salal and Oregon grape, but -if I recall correctly- they tend to prefer part shade -shade.

For something on the sunny side, next to a road, I might go for something different as the road itself will be reflecting sun and heat. Maybe oceanspray and Douglas hawthorn...

Oceanspray has no berries, but birds eat the seed. As for Douglas hawthorn, it can form thickets but maybe is probably too big for the space, I'm not sure if it can be kept small 🤔
.

thank you!

Runs EW.

Not a hedge of blackberries exactly, a runaway street planting that I’ve cut the blackberries out of. Pile of wood, very suckery survivors of the tree that was the pile of wood, mispruned mature cherry, Ribes, salmon berry, and holly and junipers to be removed.

It sounds like such a project but it’s just a distraction from the actual tiny farm. Good place to fill up with shady natives though, I love having lots of little birds around.

@marsiposa @Cetraria