Blackberry turns up on a lot of Gippsland properties. It takes over gullies, creek banks and fence lines, gives rabbits and foxes somewhere to live, keeps stock out of good country, and adds a lot of fuel in fire season. Leave a few canes alone and within a couple of seasons you've got a thicket you can't walk through.
Even big infestations can be cleared. Whether the blackberry stays gone depends on the follow-up in the years after.
Blackberry is a declared weed, so control isn't optional
Blackberry is regionally controlled in both the West Gippsland and East Gippsland catchments, and it's listed nationally as a Weed of National Significance. Under Victoria's Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994, landowners must take all reasonable steps to prevent its growth and spread on their land, and authorities can issue a notice requiring action.
Councils deal with blackberry on the roadsides they manage. Anything on your side of the fence is your responsibility.
Why slashing and spraying alone often fail
A blackberry thicket is a mass of old dead canes sitting over a living crown, with roots that can run deep. On a big thicket, spray lands on the outside canes and never reaches the crown, so the plant regrows from the middle. A tractor slasher can't get through thick, woody canes, and it won't touch the crown either.
Fire doesn't kill it. Burning takes off the top growth, but the crown and roots resprout strongly, and burning is restricted for much of the year anyway.
How we clear a thicket
For heavy infestations we use a tracked mulcher. The head grinds the canes down to ground level and into the crown, and the thicket ends up as a layer of mulch.
Once that's done, stock, vehicles and the follow-up work can get into the gullies and along the fence lines again. What grows back is fresh, low regrowth that herbicide can actually reach, which is when spraying starts to work. The mulch layer also helps hold the soil on the slopes and creek banks where blackberry tends to grow.
Tracks make a difference on this kind of work. Blackberry grows in exactly the places a wheeled tractor can't safely go, like steep gully sides, wet creek flats and broken ground. A tracked machine spreads its weight and stays stable where a tractor would slide.
Take care where blackberry is mixed through native vegetation. Removing the native plants can need a permit even though the blackberry doesn't. Our guide to land clearing permits in Gippsland explains what to check.
The follow-up is what makes it work
Mulching kills a lot of the crown, but not all of it. Blackberry will regrow from surviving crowns, root fragments and the seed bank in the soil, and a clearing job with no follow-up is usually back to a thicket within a few years.
Start by spraying the regrowth. Herbicide works best on actively growing blackberry, so follow-up spraying is usually done in the warmer months after clearing. Use a licensed spray contractor or follow the product label exactly, and take particular care near waterways.
Next, get something else growing, because bare ground invites blackberry back. Sowing pasture, or letting the existing grasses recover, gives the regrowth some competition. On creek banks, revegetating with natives is often the long-term answer.
Then keep checking for two or three years. Spot-spray new seedlings and the odd surviving crown each season. Birds spread the seed, so new plants will keep turning up, especially along fence lines and under trees.
Grazing helps too. Goats will browse blackberry regrowth hard, and cattle keep it down once the ground is open again.
When to clear
Mulching can be done most of the year, but the timing still matters. In the middle of a Gippsland winter, the creek flats and gullies where blackberry grows can be too soft for any machine, so late spring through autumn is usually easiest.
Clearing before summer reduces fuel, and because mulching doesn't involve burning, burning restrictions don't hold it up. Some machinery work can be restricted on high fire danger days, and we plan around those. If you clear in late winter or spring, the regrowth will be ready to spray in the warmer months that follow.
Getting a price
The cost depends on how big and dense the infestation is, the slope, how wet the ground is, and whether a tracked machine can get in. Photos and a rough area are enough for a ballpark figure, and for bigger jobs we'll come out and have a look.
If blackberry has taken over part of your property, talk to us. We'll clear it and give you a straight plan for keeping it gone. There's more about our blackberry and undergrowth clearing service on the services page, and a comparison of mulching and dozer clearing if you're weighing up methods.