they are still sold and heartily encouraged in this country by some unscrupulous and/or ignorant nurseries; however they are an invasive weed here and choke out the yummy native blackberries and raspberries that we picked as children.

and the wildlife gobble them quickly once they do ripen. and spread more of them. rather ugly with their red furry canes and the grey-white coloring of the underside of the leaves. and they die down in the winter. don’t know why they were considered ornamentals. and being rather tasteless compared to the native berries, who cares if the unripen berries are protected by a husk.

we rent the house we are living in now, otherwise i would remove them and replace them with berries indiginous to our area. i miss the wild raspberries and blackberries that used to grow here when i was a child and the birds and other critters did not gobble them in one sitting. plenty for all.

birds and land beavers (aka ground hogs, whistle pigs, wood chucks…cute but nasty and destructive GARDEN PESTS with huge appitites) scarf them up in a day or two. probably with the help of the overgrown deer population.

oh well, the deer population did not used to be overgrown before the lovely woodlands and family farms were turned into MCmansion subdivisions and bucks county is no longer historic bucks county.