I have been a close neighbor to blackberries for many years. As a goat-herd vegetation clearer and a farmer I have grown to love and respect these amazing brambles. In my vegetation-clearing business we uncovered cars, swales, fences, steep hillsides and even houses where mowers could never reach! In my opinion, the blackberry plant is a being worth as much praise as it is disdained!
I’ve watched blackberry bushes put on new sprigs in spring…soft enough even with thorns to pluck away from last year’s stems with bare fingers. In warm, wet weather they send out vines like sprinting Olympic runners bursting from the starting blocks. Then in late spring they begin to bloom. They push out their delicate violet-blushed but mostly white, 5 petal blossoms by the thousands until the brambles resemble waves across the landscape and the blooms foam. As spring ripens into summer the blossoms peak and in midsummer the flowers develop into fruit if the pollinators have done their work. (Which they always do!) Each stamen swells into a green hard orb with a seed inside. Then they expand with juice as they ripen creating a cluster of dark purple, sugar filled balloons-each bundle becomes a beautiful, rich, sweet berry!
We all celebrate! The birds, the raccoons, the coyotes, the rabbits, the goats, the rodents, the deer and I! (The exceptions are the farmers and homeowners in the act of spending hours and hours pruning away at the wild waves of thorny thickets devouring houses and gardens.) But I am among those who love the tangy, bright flavor of the blackberry! I’ve grown blackberry cultivars with fancy names like Logan, Marion and Triple Crown Thornless. But my favorite remains the common, weedy blackberry wether it’s the native trailing or the imported invasive growing indiscriminately everywhere including railroad tracks, roadsides, old buildings and fences. Nothing stops them short of heavy poisoning or goat browsing (which takes more time than most folks are willing to spend among their prickly vines!)
Then comes fall when the berries have been eaten and seeds distributed far and wide. The cackling geese gather in great numbers and fly across the milky white sky. The river is low and the nights are cool so the last of the uneaten berries begin to wither. Some of the blackberry leaves take on magnificent red and yellow coloring from the inner veins out. The remaining settle into a deep, dark, restful green to prepare for winter as the nutrients draw back into the roots beneath soil. The strappy new summer canes harden into a deep purple hue rendering their thorns more painfully resistant to the unprotected passerby. They will remain hard and thick as an under structure for next year’s tender new canes. This is the time of year when the roots take on their duties of food storage and above ground the plant settles into an unremarkable mass of leaves and thorny canes that tolerate freezing temperatures, heavy rains and short days with little sunlight. They become suspended in a stillness until the spring brings longer days and the nutrients reawaken last year’s canes to sprout new vines-starting the whole cycle again.
I imagine the profound wisdom of these plants has been earned by rehearsing these steps for a very long time. Like the beating of a drum, they have danced into the music of each season with perfect timing, accomplishing each task with magnificent precision. I’ve seen ornamental pears and cherries bloom in autumn mistaking the day length for spring. Blackberries rarely fall for this. They read the sky and the air without fail.
One can learn a lot from blackberries.
Like withdrawing back to your roots when things are cruel and unpleasant around you.
Like don’t waste your energy when the season isn’t quite right.
Like sprinting as if you were an Olympian when spring arrives using every second as an opportunity to grow.
Like sharing your best fruits by the millions so that your seeds can be sown miles away.
Much comfort in life can be found in the example of the blackberry plant.
