North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Just cutting Himalaya blackberries stimulates them.  As the mounds get old, the old dead canes shade the crowns and fewer new canes come out.  Cut off the canes without doing anything to the crown and it will shoot up big, thick new canes larger than the ones removed.  I've dug out crowns that were such large masses of wood they were big enough to saw up like wood.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003. 
For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com

On Apr 24, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Donna &/or Kieran wrote:

My son made a tool from a circular sawblade, cut a notch in it and added a 
handle to be fastened onto a long pole.  He can reach it in under the vines 
to cut them off at the base.  He sent us one, but our native blackberries in 
TN aren't as hard to deal with.    Donna