I’d love some feedback on how to turn this awful mess into something beautiful (pic 3-4 for basic idea). This is a berm about 4-6ft tall along our riding path (pic 1-2). It covered in our most hated invasive plant, black raspberry, that is pervasive, grows and spreads fast, and has NASTY thorns. Doesn’t even produce much fruit and the birds usually beat us to what little it produces anyway. It walls a riding path and reaches about 200ft in length. For additional info we are located in Hawaii at about 3,500ft so we have decent heat and sun in the morning/day but night drops down to 40/50 degrees.
We are thinking the best way to attack this is to break it down into sections, clearing the weeds/briars, and replanting with our plant of choice. If we cleared the whole berm length first then a majority of it would likely be regrowing with the undesirable plants before we got to replanting the farther sections requiring to clear it again. I’m looking for feedback on a few aspects.
First, what would you recommend to kill off the briars/weeds? We think our two options are clearing and then tarping, or clearing and then burning with a propane weed burner. Land owner doesn’t want to use herbicide unless it’s a last resort and would need to be animal friendly. Tarping seems labor intensive, but fire makes me nervous in general. Our area isn’t particularly dry, we have thick dew on everything every morning, but I have a deep fear of somehow causing an out of control fire; but maybe propane weed burners are safer than I’m imagining?
Second, planting the new chosen plant. Should we plant directly into the berm? I’ve seen two other methods, one planting the plants into the berm inside their plastic pots with the bottom cut out and the other using semicircle edging or even tires to sort of terrace them down the berm (pic 5 for reference). These two methods were to help keep the roots from getting exposed due to erosion by water but I’d think the pot method would make soil erosion worse between the plants pots.
Lastly the type of plant. We want something visually appealing as we will be taking guests down this path on a regular basis, but can also hold soil decently. Something that can be bushy or full would also be great so it looks like a wall of lovely flowers/foliage. So far we have been thinking: hibiscus- “native”(only one species is truly native but it’s overall been accepted as a “Hawaiian” plant at this point), easily accessible and lots of species options, pretty, can be bushy and full when pruned properly. Amaranth- can be used in our kitchen, our bouquets, and drought resistant, but as an annual we would either need to have the berm bare for a while or find another plant to sow and grow during the amaranths off season. Bougainville- pretty, low maintenance, grows fast, attracts butterflies, used in lei making, but thorns and shallow roots. Bird of paradise- bushy/clumping, grows great with no maintenance in other areas of property, see roots, but slow growing, needs a few years before flowering, and flowers are short lived. Open to other suggestions or any concerns I haven’t considered. TIA!
by MLMCMLM
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