In the winter of 1998 as, as an inexperienced forest restoration volunteer in Discovery Park I was faced with the daunting challenge of removing an entire hillside of old growth Himalayan Blackberry. I had just adopted a 4-5 acre site referred to as "number 9" by Park staff and was just starting to get a lay of the land and understand just what I was getting myself into. There were extensive stands of Scots Broom on the site, with a few, but rapidly expanding patches of Himalayan Blackberry (BB). And this patch was the worst.
It was clearly the oldest and most vigorous. It grew on a north sloping hill and had tapped into rich soil and a high water table. The thicket stood nearly 15 feet high and covered a region of hillside measuring roughly 1000 feet square. It may not have been the largest BB patch in the Park, but it was certainly the largest I was going to have to face. At the base of the hill ran a paved bicycle and pedestrian pathway. On the other side of this path was another large patch of the same. Maintenance crews kept the path clear of the blackberries but had done little else. At the top of the hill, the blackberries had crept over the top to a flat plateau and were beginning to infiltrate into a Scotts Broom patch. Most of the blackberry canes were over an inch thick. This thing towered over anyone who came near. Nothing else was growing on the hillside.
Having just started as a volunteer for the City, I had little experience or knowlege of the Parks department, it's staff or protocols. I was vaguely aware of a rule forbidding the use of power tools by volunteers, but felt it was likely a don't ask, don't tell arrangement. After unsuccessfully trying hand clippers, loppers, a shovel, machete's and handsaws (I have a strong aversion to the use herbicides), I decided that a small hand held power tool solution was the next step. Thinking that a simple weed wacker would get the job done, I tried my our old cheapo suburban model and immediately realized it wasn't up to the job of cutting through 1 inch BB canes. So I stopped by a lawn mower and power tool place nearby and found a used 2-stroke heavy duty weed whacker called the Green Machine. On a long aluminum straight shaft, it had a nice heft. I had them replace the wimpy string spool with a heavy duty metal cutting disc known as a "brush cutter".
Here was the weapon I needed to take out this patch. Powerful and very effective. For around $150 I was out the door eager to take on the savage invaders. I waited till the next rainy day (muffle chain saw noise - I thought) and proceeded to whack away at the patch. It took a surprisingly short period of time to mow down the entire patch. As I recall, I had the whole patch down in 2 mornings of work. Since they were on a north facing hill (hence the name North Slope), it was relatively easy to mow and muscle these huge canes into the valley below. By the time I was through there was a gigantic pile of mulched BB cane at the bottom.
Since this was January, I knew I only had a few months before 1) ground birds started nesting and 2) blackberries would come roaring back. I had tried at other sites to take on these patches wholesale. This rapidly had become an endless job. Instead, I thought of organizing my work around a single planting zone that could be easily maintained over the years with perhaps one or two weeding and overall upkeep visits per year.
I built my strategy around the Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Extremely fast growing, shooting out thick bushy branches and hopefully smothering the soon-to-be recurrent himalayan blackberries. These babies grow in virtually any Pacific NW conditions. Dry, wet, sunny, parially shady. I had about 15-20 doug fir 2-3 year seedlings - meaning they were about 18 inches tall. These were planted by careful, meticulous removal of all BB rootballs in a circle 4-6 foot around. The seedlings were planted in the center of these invasive-free zones. Still, they looked forlorn and raggedy. Little green shavers, surrounded by devastated BB canes.
Every 6 month or so, my plan was to stop in and easily remove the few BB swarming over the growing tree. Planting these took just a few days.
No surprise, these things took off like rockets. Today (winter 2005), some of the biggest are 20 feet tall. By my crude estimate, most of them are adding 2 - 3 feet of height per year.
Do the ends justify the means? Probably not. Imagine what would happen to our Parks if some lunatic takes a brush cutter or even worse (chain saw) to every park in the Seattle Parks system. Complete chaos. Not to mention the injuries suffered - some potentially life threatening. Do I condone what I did? No. Absolutely not. But I am not the only citizen of this City that has broken the rules because of frustration with the pace of (or lack thereof) habitat restoration in Discovery Park, or whatever remaining green space is left. Am I the only citizen frustrated by the apparent inability of Parks department to act as good stewards of our public lands? No.
