Blackberry Bush Removal Sidney to Victoria

Blackberry Bush Removal Sidney To Victoria BC
We can remove established and overgrown blackberry bushes.

Do you have a large amount of wild and overgrown blackberry bushes on your property that you’d like to have cleared away?  Maybe you’ve just purchased a home in the area and there are large sections of blackberry bushes you’d like to remove from the property?  Maybe you’ve had the property for many years and in the hustle and bustle of a busy life you just “let them go” and now they need to be reigned in?  Whatever your reason for removing the blackberry bushes, we’re glad you’ve found our website because we can help you reclaim that lost land!

There are two types of blackberry bushes on Vancouver Island.  The trailing blackberry (small, trails along ground and native to BC) and then we have the Himalayan Blackberry which are the ones the can grow into a large towering mass and overtake your property.  They are an invasive species, not natural to our Island.

Removing Blackberry Bushes Reclaims Your Lost Land.

It’s amazing how much of your available land blackberry bushes can take over in a very short amount of time.  That small, easily managed strip of blackberry bush can turn into a monster of a problem in just a few short years.  If you love the taste of blackberries and just have to get your fix there are numerous places to buy or pick them without turning sections of your property into blackberry jungle.

Removing Blackberry Bushes The Right Way From The Start

There are many companies that will claim to remove your blackberry bushes from your property but are they really doing it the right way?  From experience we can tell you that simply “cutting them back” won’t work, in fact they’ll come back with a vengeance!  Sprays and weed killers will do nothing on an established blackberry bush so there is no sense wasting your money on that either.  The only way to get rid of them once and for all is to actually cut them down and then dig up their root systems.  Even then you’ll still have some stragglers that might emerge but they’ll be much easier to remove if they are kept in check.

Here’s How We Remove Your Blackberries

#1.  We start by cutting them down using gas powered trimmers.  This get’s rid of the big mass of bushes and allows us access to the base of the plants.

#2.  We use picks and shovels to dig up the actual root system.  (If an excavator can be used we might go that route – it’s faster!)

#3.  We load everything into our dumping trailer or in some cases we’ll use a dumpster bin.

#4.  We haul away the blackberry mess with our dump trailer or one of our yard waste dumpsters (depending on how much we’re removing), leaving you with newly reclaimed land.

Important Points To Consider When Removing Blackberry Bushes From Your Property

Blackberry Bushes on Septic Fields:  Are your blackberry bushes growing on top of your septic leech field?  This could be a very expensive problem for you in a few years!  Blackberry bushes like the invasive Himalayan Blackberry can have very deep, woody root systems that can work themselves into your septic field piping, causing clogs, breakage and septic issues that can be very expensive to fix down the road.

Blackberry Bushes on Property Lines:  If your blackberry bush problem is growing along a property line then it can complicate things if your neighbour doesn’t want them removed.  It’s best to discuss this with your neighbour to see if they are opposed or if they’ll even split the cost with you since they are going to benefit from their removal as well.  If they don’t want any part of the project then your blackberry bushes can be cut back right to the property line.

Blackberry Bushes on Municipal Property:  It’s not uncommon for Blackberry bushes on municipal property to encroach onto private property.  While it’s not possible to remove them totally without permission from your council they can be trimmed back right to your property line.  Here is some more information on invasive plants from the CRD.  If you were very nice about it and approached your town council they might be able to approve removal of the blackberry bush only if it’s on municipal property and it would have to be causing damage or hardship to you or your property.

What To Do With Your Newly Reclaimed Land?

Depending on the size of your blackberry infestation you could be looking at a lot of new usable space on your property when the clean up is complete, what are you going to do with it?  Many of our customers are looking for low maintenance landscaping to fill the void created after removing the blackberry bushes.  Low maintenance could mean a selection of native plantings with a nicely bark mulched surface, or maybe you’d like to turn the area into more lawn space or a play area or a dry river bed or maybe you don’t want to do anything with the space, you just wanted the blackberries gone!

What About Lost Privacy After Removal Of The Blackberry Bushes?

There are some instances where the blackberry bushes might be growing along a property line and they are large and established enough that they are creating privacy or separation between properties.  These do not help your property value, they are actually a problem and detract from your curb appeal.  A better solution for privacy after the blackberry bushes have been removed is to install a new cedar hedge, which will look great, be low maintenance and will increase your property value as they grow.

How Much Does Blackberry Bush Removal Cost?

That’s a good question, and it’s tough to give you an accurate answer over the Internet.  There are other local companies that charge for removal based on the square footage taken up by the blackberry bush.  We can’t accurately price that way simply because we have no idea what might be “underneath” that massive blackberry bush on your property.  A perfect example would be a recent project where we started removing the blackberries only to find that the neighbours had been using the overgrown bushes as their own personal dump site!  We were hauling out garbage, tile, brick, old christmas trees and lawn refuse that the neighbour threw into our clients property!  This unexpected labour/handling can increase the cost of a project.

Other considerations that will affect cost of blackberry bush removal would be the equipment required.  Would an excavator be the best choice?  Are we going to have to remove the blackberry bushes by hand?  Are they on a steep slope? (makes for a tough day, trust me!),  Can we position our dump trailer or a rubbish bin in close proximity to the blackberry bushes being removed so we don’t need to drag the bushes across your property to get rid of them?  There are many variables that prevent us from estimating these projects by the square foot.

In order to accurately provide an estimate for the removal of your blackberry bushes we’d need to have a site visit so we can take a good look at the project and come up with a plan for removal that will work best.

Will Blackberry Bush Removal Be A Permanent Solution?  Won’t The Blackberries Just Grow Back?

If they are removed properly, by the roots and then maintained on a semi-annual basis then yes, it’s going to be a permanent solution.  Especially if the landscape is transformed into something else like a new flower garden or low maintenance display of native plantings.  Landscaping cloth can be laid down to prevent other weeds and emergents from taking hold but there will still be blackberry stragglers and new shoots that come up.  The new blackberry plants will sprout from the seeds of all the fallen berries you never picked or the birds didn’t eat over the years.  These new blackberry shoots will need to be taken care of and pulled out as they appear and long before they can establish a foot hold again.

Blackberries really only become a problem when they are just “left alone” and not touched for many years.

Why Choose Island Pro Mowing and Landscaping To Remove Blackberry Bushes From Your Property?

If you’ve got a blackberry bush problem from Sidney to Victoria or the surrounding area and you want to have them removed you’ve literally got dozens and dozens of companies to choose from.  We know this…

We just want you to know that when you choose Island Pro Mowing and Landscaping you are partnering with a small, locally owned and operated landscaping company that is big enough to handle your toughest blackberry removal projects yet small enough to still care about your individual needs as our customer.  You can count on us removing the blackberries from the roots so they won’t be a problem in the future.

If you would like to have an estimate to remove the overgrown blackberry bushes your Greater Victoria property (from Sidney to Victoria) please give us a call 250-812-4676 or fill out our contact form and we’ll get right back to you so we can schedule an appropriate time.