Space Invaders: Wineberry
Wineberry may look appealing, but this invasive bramble can quickly take over field edges, woodlands, and other areas. Learn how to identify it, remove it, and even put those thorny canes to creative use!
Space Invaders: Wineberry
The leaves are falling, the air is crisp, and garden work is winding down. Along the no man's land between fields and homes, roadways, or along the forest's edge, vibrant red, thorny stems are revealing themselves. Locally known as wineberry, or wine raspberry, this bramble is a beautiful but pernicious alien invader.
The Plant in Question
Brought to the US in the late 1800s as parent material for breeding new raspberry hybrids, Rubus phoenicolasius, aka wineberry, is a deciduous flowering bramble with white simple 5- petaled flowers in spring followed by fruits in summer. The long canes grow rapidly, first growing upright and then gently arching downwards where it forms thickets as it touches the soil and roots in. The prickly, red stems are biennial and die after fruiting in their second year. Besides the distinctive wine-red hairs of the canes, the compound foliage is used to distinguish the wineberry and garden variety raspberries. Wineberry leaflets are larger and wider than garden variety raspberries as well as having a silvery underside to the leaf and red petioles.
While a tasty roadside snack for humans and wildlife alike, wineberry grows into dense thickets that smother native plants. Each stem isn't long-lived but the canes easily root and spread, creating a many-headed hydra that swallows up the back 40 if left alone. Garden variety raspberries have improved habits that don't spread into the woods and larger and more abundant fruit making garden raspberries a better selection for the home gardener looking to add midsummer fruits to their potager.
How to Remove
As with most invasive plant removal, good timing helps turn this burdensome chore into one of relative ease. For best results, one can wait for the return of fall rains to loosen the soil and then hesitate a few days more to allow the soil to soften enough to give but firm enough to walk on, making ripping out the roots easier. However, since that ideal situation veers into the realm of fantasy, we just haul out to our outer verges in fall and winter, wearing long sleeves and pants and thick gloves, and tear ‘em out. At this time of year, the ticks have gone to bed, the leaves have fallen, and the red of the first year wineberry stems are quite noticeable. For more mature clumps, a good shovel or garden fork can help loosen the canes from the soil.
If the wineberry infestation is beyond this, bring out the weedwhacker with the triblade or hedge-trimmer attachment and go to town. Rake up and remove the canes to ensure they don't reroot. In the months ahead, continue to mow down new shoots until plant material loses strength and eventually disappears from the site.
If herbicide is an option at the location, follow manufacturer's instructions on time of year application (generally during periods of active growth in spring and summer), chemical dilution amount, and treatment method.
Lemonade from Lemons
In the past, we’ve taken wineberry canes we removed and used them for winter decorations to weave into a wreath or in a container. The arching stems (and the fact that it's free and abundant) make it a cheerful addition to winter pots with evergreen foliage and winterberry holly stems. The fuzzy prickles are a nice contrast to the smooth red stems of redtwig dogwood. We're big fans of using what we already have creatively.
At the end of the decorating season, be sure the wineberry canes are truly dead and have no new roots before disposing of it in the trash, burn pile, or hot compost heap.
As for what to do with the spot cleared of wineberry? Well, you've got all winter to dream that up.
